Bad Magic arrives at a tumultuous time in Motörhead's history. What was meant to be a triumphant return after several years of escalating health issues experienced by frontman and all-around metal icon Lemmy Kilmister has been hampered by a series of cancelled or abbreviated live sets that have become so reliably frequent that they could make George "No Show" Jones blush… although in Lemmy's case there is obviously an actual inability at play, rather than just blowing off the gig a la Jones or Axl Rose.
Motörhead's show in Austin last night may prove to be the final straw for the trio as a live act. The third aborted show in less than a week, Lemmy was forced to stop the band in the middle of their third song, "Metropolis", and announced to the crowd "I can't do it". Obviously the greatest concern here is for the man's health, but hey, that's the live side of the equation, it doesn't necessarily affect the quality of the recorded material, right?
Welllll, as much as I'd love to report otherwise the simple fact is that Bad Magic bears a great deal of the fatigue that Lemmy is experiencing behind the scenes… necessarily so, for better or worse. His voice, increasingly slurry and less articulate on recent efforts, has degenerated even further into a mushmouth drawl. It's a little easier to forgive knowing that it's a direct symptom of his health and not a deliberate phone in, but it can't help but detract from the recording to some extent. Other than that, the only real misstep here is an enormously pointless and unnecessary cover of the Rolling Stones' "Sympathy for the Devil", but while there is a certain consistency at play neither is there any real meat on these bones. While hardly terrible by any means, the album does exhibit a lean, mean muscle machine that has a hell of a lot of wear on the tires.
Lacking the feistiness and chip on their shoulder that the band showed with 2013's excellent Aftershock, the thirteen songs on Bad Magic are consistently guilty of going through the motions. Songs like "Victory or Die" and "Teach Them How to Bleed" are boilerplate Motörhead-by-numbers, sturdy enough to stand up in a mixtape or setlist next to classics like "Ace of Spades" or (ahem) "Metropolis", but too flimsy to warrant more than a cursory nod of acknowledgement on their own. "Till the End" is actually a spiffy enough change of pace, but when it's lined up in close proximity to something like "Choking On Your Screams", a middling track that shows Lemmy at his all time raspiest (you seriously feel the urge to clear your own throat when listening to this thing), it's hard to really get into any kind of groove for the long haul.
This probably shouldn't be terribly surprising; Motörhead haven't really strung together two above average albums in a row since the early 80's – some would cite March or Die a worthy follow up to the undeniably excellent 1916, but I'd call that one a half album's worth of excellent songs plus a whole lot of filler, and either way that was 20+ years ago – but, on the other hand, they've had very little trouble pumping out disposable records one after the other, with often the better part of a decade going by without any of them adding anything essential to the canon.
Look, Lemmy is a legend – 49% motherfucker, 51% son of a bitch – and regardless of who he's saddling up beside in whatever the current incarnation of the band happens to be, as metal fans we will always maintain a ton of respect and affection for Motörhead… which is why no one is rooting for the band to become the genre's version of Foghat or Three Dog Night, sheepily playing state fairs and free festivals to crowds of indifferent semi-fans.
In 2015 the ratio of great Motörhead albums to mediocre ones – ones that you listen to once when they first come out, think to yourself "hey, that was alright" and then shelve immediately, never to be actively listened to again – is hugely lopsided in favor of the thuddingly average. Lemmy rarely out-and-out embarrasses himself (although the questionable cover of "Sympathy for the Devil" here definitely belongs in that shortlist) but no one really needs another filler album out of Motörhead these days, and unfortunately empathy and a burning desire to see Lemmy rebound are not enough to make Bad Magic worth revisiting again and again. It really, truly gives me no pleasure to badmouth anything Lemmy does at this point in time, but I have a professional obligation to call them like I see them, and if it turns out we've already seen Motörhead's last rally it will have been Aftershock, not Bad Magic.
[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=msrwsyilFbU[/youtube]
