Motorhead: Clean Your Clock album review

More sweet than bitter reminder of final tour.

Motörhead Clean Your Clock album cover

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Against all the odds, this is a triumph. Given the fact it was recorded in Munich just weeks before Lemmy died, you might have expected Motörhead to sound like a struggling band, but for the most part, the trio are in splendid form.

Racing through a set spanning the band’s 40-year career, there are occasional moments when you hear the frailty in Lemmy’s voice. This, though, is quickly put to one side.

The band burst into action with Bomber, continuing on a high with Stay Clean and Metropolis. New song When The Sky Comes Looking For You slots neatly in with the classics, and there’s no drop in energy as the likes of Orgasmatron, No Class and Ace Of Spades all build towards the thunderous finale of Overkill.

You can quibble that Phil Campbell’s guitar is at times a little too dominant in the mix, but Campbell’s playing so brilliantly he deserves such attention. And it never detracts from Lemmy’s command. This could have been a maudlin reminder of what we’ve lost. Thankfully, it’s a celebration of what we had.

Malcolm Dome

Malcolm Dome had an illustrious and celebrated career which stretched back to working for Record Mirror magazine in the late 70s and Metal Fury in the early 80s before joining Kerrang! at its launch in 1981. His first book, Encyclopedia Metallica, published in 1981, may have been the inspiration for the name of a certain band formed that same year. Dome is also credited with inventing the term "thrash metal" while writing about the Anthrax song Metal Thrashing Mad in 1984. With the launch of Classic Rock magazine in 1998 he became involved with that title, sister magazine Metal Hammer, and was a contributor to Prog magazine since its inception in 2009. He died in 2021