Year Of Metal #042: Motörhead - No Sleep ‘Til Hammersmith
Motörhead’s legendary 1981 live album is both surprising and precisely as expected in about equal measure. What caught me unawares was just how terrific the whole thing sounds, not just because it’s a live LP but because it’s a live LP by a band who prioritised energy and aggression over carefully crafted solid detail. The tracks are fantastically recorded, plucked from three legs of a live 1981 tour. They’re deep and thick, and even though there isn’t a great deal of crowd noise picked up, the vibe still comes across in spades. I see the credited producer Vic Maile also helped record The Who’s Live At Leeds, so he evidently knew what he was doing on this front.
The more predictable element of the record is that you are essentially served the same thing over and over for forty minutes or so. Motörhead have their ways and they’re not really about to deviate from it. There are standout songs on here, real belters, but when they’re in a less interesting moment, it’s more than a little tedious. “Overkill” is a track particularly given over to noise for the sake of it, and “(We Are) The Road Crew” - while kind of cute for the fact they are just doing a song for their buddies backstage - doesn’t need to be on here.
Still, they’re hardly the first hard rock act to be repetitive and they won’t be the last, so there’s little point dwelling on the lesser stuff when there’s so much good on here. Opener “Ace Of Spades” is one of those classic songs you honestly don’t ever need to hear again, but there’s an argument this should be considered the definitive version. Lemmy’s bass twangs like nobody’s business, and Phil Taylor’s thunderous drums are pure hardcore.
“Metropolis” is probably my favourite song on the album, a gooey, slow number with a ton of punch to the sound. It’s a rare Motörhead tune that gives the majority of the instrumental melody to the guitar, with Lemmy lurking mostly on one note as Eddie Clark throws out some fierce wah-wah licks and choppy chords. It’s big, droning, and unusually heavy - the Hawkwind days were long in the past by this point, but this wouldn’t be at all out of place among the proto-metal of a decade prior.
Another interest is “Iron Horse”, taken from their 1977 debut. I’d wager this is before the band had really crystalised their full throttle approach; it’s much closer to classic rock than the early thrash they’d make their name for, with conventional choruses and a nice clean riff. All of that through the lens of Lemmy’s 40-a-day gurgling vocals makes for a cool listen. On the other end of the spectrum is “The Hammer”,a pure three chord wig out that exemplifies the technical quality that tends to go ignored. Granted, it’s not complex stuff they’re playing, but they get it all off beautifully, playing tight as you like (and you can’t imagine it’d have been easy for the lads to hear one another), before ripping the “Ace Of Spades” solo again just for fun.
It’s an album that you can pop on to energise you with guaranteed results. Motorhead deliver precisely what they can always promise - attitude, speed, noise - and if it’s repetitive, well, that’s what you signed up for. Coupled with some of the best live production I can remember hearing, it’s a classic of the concert record subgenre for good reason.
