"Maybe they should have included a disc of Lemmy spinning in his grave." Motörhead's On Parole Sessions are a noble endeavour but the extras are perplexing

Motörhead were fucked by the music business from the start. Lemmy, guitarist Larry Wallis and drummer Lucas Fox entered Rockfield Studios in late 1975 to record their debut album with producer Dave Edmunds.

So far so good. But Edmunds quit mid-session and Fox bailed soon afterwards, their respective places taken by Fritz Fryer and maniac-in-waiting ‘Philthy Animal’ Taylor, the latter manfully overdubbing Fox’s drums on all but one track. Album finally in the bag, their original record company United Artists took one listen and refused to release it – only to cynically stick it out a few years later after Overkill and Bomber proved the band weren’t quite the dud the label thought.

In fairness, UA weren’t totally wide of the mark in their initial assessment. On Parole, as it would eventually be called, presented a pallid version of the band Motörhead became – a put-putting scooter rather than a roaring hog. Lemmy’s reedy voice is worlds away from that instantly recognisable Beelzebubian bark, ex-Pink Fairies man Wallis’s spindly playing lacks his successor ‘Fast Eddie’ Clarke’s filth-hound snarl, and the whole thing sounds too damn polite. Many of the songs are there – fantastic Mick Farren collaboration Lost Johnny, Iron Horse/Born To Lose, Motörhead itself – but they’d be turbocharged on the band’s eventual self-titled debut.

Motorhead (1997 Remaster) - YouTube

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This four-disc reissue of On Parole is a strange beast – a celebration of an album that doesn’t really need that much celebrating. The original record remains an interesting curio rather than an essential part of the picture, although some attempt has been made to inflate its importance. Two discs of perfunctory alternative takes and instrumental versions don’t add anything much but padding; the Motörhead studio MO was play it then play it again until you get it right, which is as uneventful to listen to now as it presumably was to record 50 years ago.

More perplexingly, Steven Wilson has been brought in to work his remix magic on the original album, which misses the point – if ever an album needed more filth, grime and cat hair in the mix, it’s this. And the addition of a Blu-ray disc featuring an Atmos mix is just insane - Motörhead were the opposite of what ‘audiophile’ stands for. Maybe they should have included a disc of Lemmy spinning in his grave like the reels on the St Moritz fruit machine.

Unlike the original release of On Parole, this is at least a noble endeavour, done in the interest of the band’s legacy. But it’s a long way from an essential one.