Overkill

Back in '79, the seventies were to reach the end and the metal scene was quite lost in the fog or sleeping, caught between punk and disco. And then suddenly came from nowhere an album which will shook the world forever : Overkill !! With this war cry, the metal scene will never be the same again ... The album will reach immediate success and went Top 30 in UK reaching No. 24. By the fall of '79, the band has sold over 1'000'000 records in Europe alone !

The french magazine "Best" called it "Metal masterpiece" and they were really right. Just let's speak about the sleeve : the exploding skull speaks for itself and indicates what kind of metal meltdown the listener will find on the record. The album begins with the title track so appropriate : Overkill. The "animal" begins with the double bass drum which will be the metal trademark since then, after came Lemmy with his monstruous bass playing and finally "fast Eddie" enters the stage with his straightforward but efficient riffs. And this crazy train will never stop 'til (Hammersmith !) the end of the record. Listening to this album is like receiving a fist right in the face.

The album contains such classics as Overkill, Capricorn, No Class, Metropolis and Limb From Limb. I recommend you to hear the incredible second guitar solo (from Lemmy himself) on Limb From Limb, which begins after an unsuspected pace acceleration : crazy like a fox ... This album is well balanced between fast metal songs, rock anthems and hard rock gems, and it reunited under the same banner punks, metal heads and rock fans, which is not his least credit. This album was produced by Jimmy Miller, former producer of the Rolling Stones. Of course, after 22 years one can say that the production is definitely locked in the eighties, but the remastering add power and clearness to this masterpiece.

With this album, Motörhead embarked for a full UK headline tour with Girlschool as guests, and then they toured extensively throughout Europe, capitalizing on the album's success. Nowadays, Motörhead still play onsatge 4 songs from this album (Overkill, Capricorn, No Class, Metropolis), which shows that it has passed the test of time and will remain a true classic.