Artist: Various Artists
Album: Motörhead Tribute – India
Label: Iron Fist Records
Release Date: June 22, 2013
So we are just a few days away from the release of the much talked Motörhead tribute album and there certainly is a raise in the level of excitement in every Motörhead fan across the country. Motörhead has been one of the most influential acts in the heavy metal history, as being the prime engineers who laid the foundation of the upcoming forms of heavy metal in the 80s. The album gives a tribute to these kingpins of heavy metal by laying out 13 subtle and diverse covers.
The line-up consists of India’s twelve most recognized bands playing their own version of Motörhead tracks and the noticeable thing is the amount of diversity we find in the album, which simply draws attention to the fact how much of an influence Lemmy and Co is. The brilliant artwork for the album is done by Bevar Sea’s guitarist, Rahul Chacko aka the Scribe Bandit, and features our national animal, wearing a warrior helmet, reminiscent of Motorhead’s mascot, War-pig aka Snaggletooth.
1. Millennium – Iron Fist
Perfectly bringing the album to start is Millennium’s cover of title track from 1982’s ‘Iron Fist’. Enriched with heavy metal sound from the 80s, the track embraces the speed and energy of the original track faultlessly with some added “motherf*ckers” and “bastards” by Vehrnon. He has done a pretty kickass job in catching Lemmy’s drive by maintaining precise amount of energy. The guitars and drums have also been optimized perfectly to capture Motörhead’s essence at the same time maintain the sound which Millennium is known for. A very good cover indeed!
2. Dying Embrace – Deaf Forever
I’m always thrilled to see Dying Embrace come up with something new, because we all know it’s going to be cult and old school to the core. Their version of ‘Deaf Forever’ is indeed really murky and austere, as we expected it to be, featuring a totally dull tone of guitars and an intense solo instead of an upbeat rock ‘n roll solo, which sounds totally kickass. The chorus has a sort of melodic quintessence giving it a total different feel altogether. I would say it’s a very good cover. The only thing that bothers me personally is Vikram’s vocals; he changed his usual style of growled vocals to raspy clean vocals, which wasn’t quite necessary according to me.
3. 1833 AD – Dead and Gone
This is perhaps the most interesting cover on the album as we obviously expect it to be. 1833 AD picked up the mould of the song and totally poured it in with their opulent and vivid black metal sound. The song has been totally reformed right from the cold intro, through the tremolo picked harmonies in the verse and chorus to the intense outro following a melancholic and gloomy solo. A die hard Motörhead fan may dislike this cover but I would certainly call it a very brave and innovative attempt of covering an old school song.
4. Bevar Sea – Turn You Round Again
Bevar Sea, the Sludge/Stoner Metal band, come up with their grand version of ‘Turn You Round Again’. The song is basically pretty much similar to the original track, except it uses a lower tuning with a decrease in tempo, which is just cool as it adds their essence to the song. Ganesh has done a pretty good job with the vocals and the guitars have also been done nicely; successfully capturing hard rock sound with the somewhat stoner metal tone.
5. Albatross – God Was Never On Your Side
Not often did Lemmy come up with a soft track, but when he did, he would just kill it. Albatross chose to cover this amazing track by Motörhead and did a beautiful job with it. The cover magnificently captures the emotions and grace of the song with brilliant vocals by Biprorshee Das and melancholic guitars solos by Vigneshkumar Venkatraman. This is no doubt one of the best covers on the album. The only complaint I would have is with the production. The track loses a bit of dynamics with the drums and lead guitars, which have a damped sound. Besides that, the cover is just fantastic.
The Sludge Metal band from Bangalore, Shepherd, comes up with a rather muddy version of this classic Motörhead track, from 1995’s album of the same name. The song is slowed down and like any Shepherd track, the guitars sound dirty as hell. I loved the sludgy interlude added by the band at about 02:11; it brings in a whole transient drony feeling to the song. However, since it’s a downbeat band covering the song, the catchy upbeat essence of the original song is lost. So my suggestion would be to listen to the song with a fresh ear, and you will surely like it.
7. Witchgoat – Death or Glory
When I saw the name of these cocksuckers in the line-up, it was fucking no surprise to see that these cunts would choose to cover a song from an album called ‘Bastards’! Bringing back the primitive proto-black metal sound in the industry, Witchgoat did a fucking great job in covering the song. With murky guitar patches, harsh vocals and straightforward drum lines, this track adds a total Hellhammer and early Sodom feel to the album. Though some of the components from the original song are missing, the song flows pretty nicely and is a great cover indeed.
8. Djinn and Miskatonic – I Don’t Believe a Word
When I saw them live last year at the second edition of Trendslaughter Fest, I was pretty surprised and impressed by the band’s performance, driven by just a bass and no guitars. It was good to see their name on the line-up for this album and now that they have a guitarist in their line-up, I knew something good was coming. Their low-tempo paced version of this Motörhead song is downright doomy and dull and carries a very dark ambience with it. It’s nothing like the original track and it has been totally twisted by their extravagant and innovative sound. For me, the highlight on the track would be Gautham Khandige’s vocals, which have been delivered so brilliantly, both the growls and cleans.
9. Mortar – I Am the Sword
Another one from 1993’s ‘Bastards’! Unlike other tracks on the album, Mortar’s cover of ‘I Am the Sword’ is a speeded up version of the original track. Filled up with blastbeats and alternate-picked thrash riffs, the song brings in the aggression and speed of thrash metal on the table. I’m really impressed by the way riffs were moulded to make the song totally mosh-prone. The production of the song is also pretty good unlike their debut EP, released early this year. A great cover indeed
10. Solar Deity – Orgasmatron
A Satanic Black Metal band covering Motörhead certainly sounds very interesting! But, I am a bit disappointed after listening to this particular cover. The disappointment is there not for the reason that it doesn’t sound good, because it does but because Aditya Mehta failed to add his own touch to it. The cover is mostly like the original track but with growled vocals. However, if you like the original track and you like growling, you might end up enjoy the track.
11. Purgation – Terminal Show
This is one of the heavier Motörhead tracks and Purgation has done a pretty decent job in covering it. We experience an even heavier sound on this cover with growled vocals and tuned down guitars. The verses and chorus have been suitably covered but one could say that they somewhat failed to capture the grace of Steve Vai’s solo. All in all, I would say the cover is pretty satisfactory except for the solo.
12. Dormant Inferno – The Game
WWE fans would know that this song is used by the iconic wrestler Triple H as his entrance theme and it was composed by Jim Johnston, the famous composer who has been composing themes for WWE since 1985. Dormant Inferno’s version starts with an added minute long kinda symphonic intro and continues with the song with an even heavier sound. The work on tuned down guitars and drums is pretty nice, although I found the deep growls and heavy orchestrations on keyboards a bit unfitting. The song does exhibit a bit of innovativeness but whether you’ll like it or not, that totally depends on.
13. Bevar Sea – Ace of Spades
Now this wasn’t listed on the tracklist so I’m assuming that it’s a bonus track on the album. Bevar Sea comes back for a nice acoustic cover of ‘Ace of Spades’. It’s a pretty cool cover of the Motörhead psalm, written in a chilled-out mood, which adds a nice blues /country touch to the album with marvellous slide guitar sections and lovely clean vocals. Perhaps they felt that a Motörhead tribute album is incomplete without ‘Ace of Spades’.
Summing up, it’s a brilliant effort by these artists to give a salute to the pioneers of NWOBHM! The songs are good and pretty innovative and their likeness totally depends on the way you perceive them.
Listen to the album here.
