Motörhead - Under Cöver album review

Heavy metal’s greatest heroes pay tribute to the classics

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Cover art for Motörhead - Under Cöver album

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Forget any cynicism you may have about this being a cash-in because the music here is simply irresistible. It takes in the period from 1992-2015, picking out songs closely associated with other artists, but here given a Lemmy-style enthusiastic rock’n’roll sheen. From Ozzy Osbourne’s Hellraiser, which was actually co-written with Lemmy, through to the Sex Pistols’ God Save The Queen, onward to Judas Priest’s classic Breaking The Law and Twisted Sister’s Shoot ’Em Down, plus Metallica’s Whiplash, every cover version works so well they seem to belong to Motörhead. Saxon’s Biff Byford joins the band for a strong run-through of Rainbow’s Starstruck, but the real gem here is a previously unreleased version of David Bowie’s Heroes. Quite why this been allowed to gather dust on the shelf since being recorded in 2015 is puzzling; it pays respect to the originals, yet fits seamlessly into the band’s style. A cracking collection.

Malcolm Dome
Malcolm Dome

Malcolm Dome had an illustrious and celebrated career which stretched back to working for Record Mirror magazine in the late 70s and Metal Fury in the early 80s before joining Kerrang! at its launch in 1981. His first book, Encyclopedia Metallica, published in 1981, may have been the inspiration for the name of a certain band formed that same year. Dome is also credited with inventing the term "thrash metal" while writing about the Anthrax song Metal Thrashing Mad in 1984. With the launch of Classic Rock magazine in 1998 he became involved with that title, sister magazine Metal Hammer, and was a contributor to Prog magazine since its inception in 2009. He died in 2021.