Recorded in front of twelve thousand rabid fans at the Berlin Velodrom in December 2012, Louder Than Noise… Live in Berlin (Silver Lining Music) is the sound of British rock legends Motörhead doing what they did best. Playing rock ‘n’ roll at the loudest possible volume and making lots of drunk people bang their sweaty heads until they either threw up or passed out. Motörhead shows were fantastic, weren’t they?

Promoting their 2010 album The Wörld Is Yours (UDR/EMI), the show was taken from the first European leg of the Kings of the Road Tour and is simply the sound of a band enjoying themselves to the fullest. Relying heavily on old standards rather than newer tracks, only ‘I Know How to Die’ from TWIY makes the cut from their post-2000 records, every other track culled from the band’s earlier years. In fact, the only tracks from the nineties are ‘You Better Run’ from 1992’s March ör Die (Epic), and a couple lifted from the previous year’s 1916 (Epic).

With everything else culled from the ’70s and ’80s, you already know you’re in for a good time as the band bomb through guaranteed ceiling rattlers like ‘Overkill’, ‘Stay Clean’, Metropolis’, ‘Damage Case’, ‘Over the Top’, ‘Going to Brazil’, and naturally, ‘Ace of Spades’. Meanwhile, slightly less well known tracks like 1980’s ‘The Chase Is Better Than the Catch’, and ‘Rock It’ from 1983’s criminally underrated Another Perfect Day (Bronze) album still do their fair share of damage.

 

Obviously, at this point in life, frontman and wart enthusiast Ian ‘Lemmy’ Kilmister was getting on in years and as a result, occasionally struggles with his voice. A fact most notable on otherwise thumping versions of ‘Doctor Rock’, ‘Killed By Death’, and before Mikkey Dee‘s monstrous drum solo during ‘The One to Sing the Blues’.

 

Throbbing and rumbling behind every track, Lemmy’s trademark Rickenbacker joins the razor-sharp riffs of six-stringer Phil Campbell on the band’s fourteenth (and presumably final) live album, Louder Than Noise capturing the sound of a band still giving absolutely everything. Exactly as you’d want to remember them.

Buy the album here: https://smarturl.it/MHLOUDERTHANNOISE

8/1Ö

GARY ALCOCK