This, in addition to the solid track listing and Miller's production, makes Overkill a perfect Motörhead album. The band's classic lineup - Lemmy (bass and vocals), 'Fast' Eddie Clarke (guitar), and 'Philthy Animal' Taylor (drums) - is well in place here, and they seem eager to rip loose wildly on every single song. A number of Motörhead standards follow, among them 'Stay Clean' and 'No Class.' Produced by Jimmy Miller, who had helmed a number of classic Rolling Stones albums ( Beggars Banquet, Let It Bleed, Sticky Fingers, Exile on Main St., Goats Head Soup), Overkill sounds wonderful, especially on the numerous remastered editions of this album. The band's sound is fully formed here, and it totally explodes right off the bat on the five-minute title track. Plenty of hard rock and metal bands had utilized double bass drumming by this point but youd be hard pressed to find patterns with this degree of filth. Overkill is what followed, recorded in December 1978 and January 1979, and released not long thereafter. Motörhead, the band's self-titled debut from 1977, had been rush-recorded, and its stripped-down, super-raw sound wasn't all that impressive, at least not relative to what would follow. It's a ferocious album, for sure, perfectly showcasing Motörhead's trademark style of no holds barred proto-thrash - a kind of punk-inflected heavy metal style that is sloppy and raw yet forceful and in your face. In fact, some fans consider it their single best, topping even Ace of Spaces. Motörhead's landmark second album, Overkill, marked a major leap forward for the band, and it remains one of their all-time best, without question.

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