''Motörizer'' is the nineteenth studio album by British rock band

Motörhead Motörhead () were an English rock band formed in London in 1975 by Lemmy (lead vocals, bass), Larry Wallis (guitar) and Lucas Fox (drums). Lemmy was also the primary songwriter and only constant member. The band are often considered a prec ...

. It was released on 26 August 2008, their eleventh and last on the Steamhammer label.

Recording

Recording took place at end of 2007 and the beginning of 2008. As with all their albums since 2004's '' Inferno'', it was produced, mixed and engineered by Cameron Webb.

Release

Lemmy Ian Fraser Kilmister (24 December 1945 – 28 December 2015), better known as Lemmy Kilmister or simply Lemmy, was an English musician. He was the founder, lead singer, bassist and primary songwriter of the rock band Motörhead, of which he wa ...

appeared on

BBC 6 Music BBC Radio 6 Music is a British digital radio station owned and operated by the BBC, specialising primarily in alternative music. BBC 6 Music was the first national music radio station to be launched by the BBC in 32 years. It is available only ...

's radio programme,

Bruce Dickinson Paul Bruce Dickinson (born 7 August 1958) is an English singer who has been the lead vocalist of the heavy metal band Iron Maiden from 1981 to 1993 and 1999–present. He is known for his wide-ranging operatic vocal style and energetic stag ...

's ''

Friday Rock Show The ''Friday Rock Show'' was a radio show in the United Kingdom that was broadcast on BBC Radio 1 from 10pm to midnight on Friday nights, from 17 November 1978 until 2 April 1993. For most of its existence, it was hosted by Tommy Vance. Vance ...

'' on 11 July 2008, to promote the album, playing the track "Runaround Man", which he described as: He also played "Rock Out" and "The Thousand Names of God", about which he said: The band's lead single "Rock Out" was featured as the official theme song to '' WWE Unforgiven'', and was used in the films '' Hesher'' and '' Nitro Circus: The Movie''.

Artwork

The album cover was revealed on the front page of the group's official

website A website (also written as a web site) is a collection of web pages and related content that is identified by a common domain name and published on at least one web server. Examples of notable websites are Google, Facebook, Amazon, and W ...

on 11 June 2008. Notable for being the band's first album since ''

Overnight Sensation ''Overnight Sensation'' is the thirteenth studio album by British rock band Motörhead. It was released on 15 October 1996 via Steamhammer, their second on the label. It is their first studio album to not feature guitarist Würzel, and returni ...

'' (1996) without the artwork of long-time collaborator

Joe Petagno Joe Petagno (born January 1, 1948) is an American artist known principally for creating images used on rock album covers for bands such as Led Zeppelin, Nazareth, Black Oak Arkansas, Sweet, Hawkwind, Motörhead, Roy Harper, Marduk, Bal-Sagoth ...

, the cover artwork is by Mark De Vito and features a Motörhead-themed

coat of arms A coat of arms is a heraldic visual design on an escutcheon (i.e., shield), surcoat, or tabard (the latter two being outer garments). The coat of arms on an escutcheon forms the central element of the full heraldic achievement, which in its ...

, with the shield quartered for each band member: the

Royal Arms of England The royal arms of England are the arms first adopted in a fixed form at the start of the age of heraldry (circa 1200) as personal arms by the Plantagenet kings who ruled England from 1154. In the popular mind they have come to symbolise the ...

for

in the top left corner: the Draig Goch of

Wales Wales ( cy, Cymru ) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is bordered by England to the east, the Irish Sea to the north and west, the Celtic Sea to the south west and the Bristol Channel to the south. It had a population in ...

for Phil Campbell in the bottom right corner, the Tre Kronor of

Sweden Sweden, formally the Kingdom of Sweden,The United Nations Group of Experts on Geographical Names states that the country's formal name is the Kingdom of SwedenUNGEGN World Geographical Names, Sweden./ref> is a Nordic countries, Nordic c ...

for Mikkey Dee in the bottom left corner, and

Snaggletooth Snaggletooth may refer to: *"Snaggletooth", a 1984 song by English rock band Motörhead from '' No Remorse'' * Snaggletooth a.k.a. Warpig, the mascot of English rock band Motörhead * Snivvian (a.k.a. Snaggletooth), a character seen in ''Star Wars ...

(the band's mascot) for the band as a whole.

Reception

The album was met with mostly positive reviews on release. Alex Henderson of

Allmusic AllMusic (previously known as All Music Guide and AMG) is an American online database, online music database. It catalogs more than three million album entries and 30 million tracks, as well as information on Musical artist, musicians and Music ...

gave the album a positive review, saying that "the classic Motörhead sound prevails, and forceful, in-your-face tracks such as "Buried Alive", "Runaround Man", "When the Eagle Screams", and "Time Is Right" sound like they could have been recorded 25 years earlier. Motorizer never pretends to be groundbreaking, but if the material is predictable, it is engagingly predictable." Cosmo Lee of Pitchfork Media gave a positive review, saying that it was an improvements over recent Motorhead albums and that: "''Motörizer'' avoids the bland hard rock that larded up some of the band's recent records. Instead, its 11 tracks efficiently clock in at under 39 minutes. Lemmy turns 63 this year, but he still sounds half his age." The album reached number 32 on the

UK Albums Chart The Official Albums Chart is a list of albums ranked by physical and digital sales and (from March 2015) audio streaming in the United Kingdom. It was published for the first time on 22 July 1956 and is compiled every week by the Official Charts ...

, making it the band's highest-charting album in the UK since ''

1916 Events Below, the events of the First World War have the "WWI" prefix. January * January 1 – The British Royal Army Medical Corps carries out the first successful blood transfusion, using blood that had been stored and cooled. * J ...

'' in 1991. The album debuted on ''Billboard'' chart at No. 82. It peaked at No. 2 on the UK Rock & Metal chart, and at No. 5 on the German 'Offizielle Top 100' & US Independent charts. As with the band's last few albums, it did not make a massive impact on the general public, but saw dedicated sales in markets where they had a strong following. "We've never had a hit in America", remarked Lemmy. "We actually got in the top 100 this time… Number 89 icand straight out again, but it's a start."Kern, Rob: "What's been the highlight of the shows? That I'm still alive!"; ''

Classic Rock Classic rock is a US radio format which developed from the album-oriented rock (AOR) format in the early 1980s. In the United States, the classic rock format comprises rock music ranging generally from the mid-1960s through the mid 1990s, prim ...

'' #138, November 2009, p19

Track listing

Personnel

Motörhead

– vocals, bass * Phil Campbell – guitars * Mikkey Dee – drums * Wesley Mishener –

slide guitar Slide guitar is a technique for playing the guitar that is often used in blues music. It involves playing a guitar while holding a hard object (a slide) against the strings, creating the opportunity for glissando effects and deep vibratos t ...

on "The Thousand Names of God"

Production

*Cameron Webb – producer, mixing,

engineer Engineers, as practitioners of engineering, are professionals who Invention, invent, design, analyze, build and test machines, complex systems, structures, gadgets and materials to fulfill functional objectives and requirements while considerin ...

*Sergio Chavez – assistant engineer *John Lousteau – assistant engineer *Wesley Mischener – assistant engineer *Josh Bierly – assistant engineer *Kevin Bartley – mastering *Lemmy – cover concept and inside

digipak Optical disc packaging is the packaging that accompanies CDs, DVDs, and other formats of optical discs. Most packaging is rigid or semi-rigid and designed to protect the media from scratches and other types of exposure damage. Jewel case ...

art *Robert John – photography *Mark De Vito – illustration *Steffan Chirazi – creative direction *Mark Abramson – art direction, graphic design

Recording

Release

Artwork

Reception

Track listing

Personnel

Motörhead

Production

Charts

Release history

References

External links