Coup De Grace is straight-forward bludgeoning metal, with bold vocals, sizzling guitars, and a tremendous momentum that punctuates all points of the track. Lemmy’s vocals are as vibrant and on-point as they always have been, while the track provides listeners with the kick in the ass that they need to stick with the rest of the album. Lost Woman Blues showcases Motorhead at their artistic finest. While the band can slay listeners, they have the technical prowess necessary to make a track that stands up to repeated listening. The guitars and drums unite to make an epic-sounding mélange of blues, hard rock, and even progressive metal. The band may fit all of the track in a four-minute space, but the expansive sound will have listeners feeling as if the track was a massive 10-minute opus.
Silence When You Speak To Me is a tremendously introspective type of track, rendered into music that is utterly impossible to forget. The wizened sound of Aftershock makes this one of the year’s most enduring albums, while still providing listeners with more than enough of the heavy rock / metal that fans expect from Motorhead.
After all the years that Lemmy and co have existed as a band, Aftershock represents further evidence that the band has not lost a stop. No matter whether one begins with Heartbreaker or the later half of the disc (Keep Your Powder Dry, Paralyzed). The Best Buy version of this release comes with a bonus DVD that captures the band’s performance at the Download 2013 festival.
Top Tracks: Coup De Grace, Silence When You Speak To Me
Rating: 8.7/10
Motorhead Aftershock CD Review / 2013 / 14 Tracks / http://www.motorhead.com