Motorhead: The Complete Early Years Boxset

The greatest contribution Hawkwind made to rock music was firing bass player Ian Fraser ‘Lemmy’ Kilmister in 1975 following his arrest at the Canadian border on charges of drug possession. Lemmy, as we now all know, formed new band BASTARD before heeding the advice of his manager that any band with such a name would be completely overlooked by the music industry - so the band was renamed after the last song he ever wrote for Hawkwind - that song was, of course, called MOTORHEAD -and the rest, as the stereotyped expression loves to tell us….is history! Their loud, raucous, fast punk tinged heavy rock & roll biker chic was a revolutionary explosion of graceless rebellion explicitly employing conflicting genres of music with ceaseless audacity, and such smug nihilism has served them gloriously well - the years have not diminished the power. 

To mark a career which, to date, spans more than 3 decades, Sanctuary/Universal are to release Motorhead: The Complete Early Years Box Set. Housed within a unique Motorhead skull case are the first 8 albums, seven early singles, a limited edition print, concert programmes, badges and a collectors guide to the band. In fairness the band have completely distanced themselves from the whole thing and a recent statement from Lemmy urged fans not to buy it, claiming they have ‘no control over what’s done with their early songs’ and ‘wouldn’t want our fans to think we’d ever be involved in putting out such a costly product’. As endearing as his sincerity may be it’s a product possibly far too appealing for the hardcore collector to disregard based only on the disgruntled front-man. The first 8 albums are, without doubt, the most potent and concise of the Motorhead heritage. Among them…

MOTORHEAD (1977): The stripped back heavy rock with tinges of raw punk - this is the embryotic stages of their development - including the brutal, grit edged wall of noise title track as album opener - the hard rocking ‘Vibrator’ and a stand-out version of the Johnny Burnette song ‘Train Kept A Rollin’ 

OVERKILL (1979) Everything fell into pieces here as Motorhead unleash the sound and style they’re known for. Everything about this album is literally groundbreaking. The title track’s unrelenting holocaust of drums and hefty rock & roll paves the way for a collection of awesome compositions including ‘Stay Clean’ a snarling ‘No Class’ and ‘I’ll Be Your Sister’

BOMBER (1979) Surprisingly average record that failed completely to live up to the expectation OVERKILL churned up. Probably their weakest release ever - but it still contains a couple of classics like ‘Dead Men Tell No Tales’ and ‘Stone Dead Forever’ The majority of it is all a bit uninteresting and lacks the muscular drive of previous songs.

ACE OF SPADES (1980) This is Motorhead at their fast-paced, unstoppable best. Fiercely delivered arrogant rock & roll with depth and cleverness rooted at the foundation of every moment. Some of their best songs appeared on this album - (We Are) The Road Crew, ‘Live To Win’ ‘Jailbait’ ‘Ace Of Spades’ and ‘Love Me Like A Reptile’ A solid monument of pure brilliance.

Making up the rest of this extensive collection are…
Beer Drinkers And Hell Raisers (1977)
Louie Louie (1978)
Golden Years EP (1980)
St Valentines Day Massacre EP (1980)

Iron Fist (1982)
Another Perfect Day (1983)
Stand By Your Man EP (1982)
No Remorse (1984)
Shine (1983)
Killed By Death (1984)

Make no mistake, this IS the perfect collection for any serious Motorhead follower. Every second of their greatness is right here - and the collectors shall welcome it with frenzied joy.