*** Motörhead

WE ARE MOTÖRHEAD

(CMC International)

Bet your ass they are, and they've finally made a new album worthy of the name. The classic Motörhead formula has always entailed the songs being punchy, the riffs being brutal, and Lemmy being Lemmy. During the '90s they tweaked the formula just slightly in the wrong direction: the last half-dozen albums were not awful but not memorable, weighed down by overlong guitar solos, overslow tempos, and humorless war-oriented lyrics.

But you know that a 10-song disc clocking in at just 38:27 is going to be an improvement; and you know it's going to be a big improvement when you observe that the opener, "See Me Burning," sounds like every song on the Ace of Spades album rolled into one. Motörhead's ballads usually fall flat, but this album's "One More Fucking Time" hits the mark because the tune's pretty, because the failed-love lyric makes sense, and because it's called "One More Fucking Time." Elsewhere they check in on big topics like stage fright ("Not me, not me"), big business ("Way too rich, every executive son of a bitch"), and sex with teenagers ("Stay Out of Jail"), wrapping it up with the dumb but brilliant title track. The big shocker is a rare cover, "God Save the Queen," that sounds exactly like the Sex Pistols and exactly like Motörhead. Point taken: there was never that much difference.

-- Brett Milano