As latter-day Motörhead albums go, this is, well, another one. Even diehard fans can be excused for not being able to tell the last half-dozen albums apart: they’ve all had the same line-up and the same sound; they’ve all been decent, and none is classic (their previous release, We Are Motörhead, did boast a killer cover of "God Save the Queen," and overall it was their strongest in at least a decade). The tunestack is weaker this time out, a couple numbers exceed the dreaded five-minute mark, and the addition of choral harmonies on "Walk a Crooked Mile" does nobody any good. Worse, frontman Lemmy’s sense of humor has gone missing: instead of his usual priceless one-liners we get overstated social commentary on "Brave New World" ("Smoking dope will get you worse than murder one" — really?) and a spoken-word track, "Serial Killer," that’s a bit too silly to be scary.

That said, Motörhead still sound pretty damn good when they’re running on autopilot. Weak songs or not, the band are every bit as fearsome as they were on the classic run of ’80s albums, and they’ve finally got producers who know how to capture the mighty throb of Lemmy’s bass. The WWF theme "The Game" makes a perfect match of band and subject matter; and "No Remorse" is Motörhead doing a big, blustery metal anthem — no problem there. Instead of learning new tricks or turning into self-parody, the band just continue to roll along. It’s not heroic and it’s not pathetic: it’s just Motörhead.