MOTORHEAD Bomber is the third album released by the band and after the charting with their previous album Overkill and subsequent touring the band went in into record this one. The production is much improved and the songs on this album overall sound more coherent as a release.
The album opens up with long time live staple and crowd favorite “Dead Men Tell no Tales” and right away you can hear the rock n roll attitude the band are famous for. This is glorious stuff with everything mixed “louder than everything else” but sounding perfect. “Lawman” and “Sweet Revenge” follow with a slower sleazier bluesey feel. “Sharp Shooter” and “Poison” pick up the pace but so far there’s no real high energy bangers like say the song “Overkill” from the previous album, that’s fine though these are great songs and very easy to listen to.
Side two picks it up in terms of pace and feel with “Stone Dead Forever” with what feels like more typical Motorhead fare “All the Aces” is another great song. So far there’s no duds on here. Another point that I think needs to be made is main man, Lemmy writes some absolutely brilliant lyrics that fit the songs and the attitude of the band perfectly. “Step Down” is a bit of a departure in sound but back into it with “Talking Head” and finally the banger we’d been waiting for all album “Bomber” which kind of brings back that “Overkill” feel. This song again wen’t on to become a staple of their live set for the whole of the bands existence after this. I can’t help but wonder why they didn’t open the album with this one but then maybe they’d be accused of repeating themselves.
Overall this is a great release there’s nothing really that I can fault it on and considering they released it so quickly after Overkill the quality is right up there. I’d have to say this isn’t quite there with their previous album but they didn’t get the time to refine the songs as well live (or really even play them live) where as the songs on Overkill were extensively toured live before recording. Either way this is still a great album and definitley an essential Motorhead release.