Motörizer

Recording for the album was completed over the northern hemisphere winter of 2007-08, when the band had finished up their last tour, at Lemmy's long-time home of Hollywood in Los Angeles. As with all their albums since 2004's Inferno, it was Produced, Mixed and Engineered by Cameron Webb in California. Though the bands spends most of the year somewhere on tour together anyway, Philip and Mikkey have mostly recorded in the US when doing Motörhead albums, as Lemmy doesn't really travel unless touring since relocating. His age and health eventually made this the norm for the band, and so this album was done the same as the last few, with a few weeks over a few months practising, then into the studio for recordings. The format has served the band well enough over the years, as they generally brush off comments about their sound, that doesn't alter much each album by this stage in their careers, a formula they have been happy with.

Lemmy appeared on BBC 6 Music's radio programme, Bruce Dickinson's Friday Rock Show [1] on 11 July 2008, to promote the album, playing the tracks Runaround Man, which he described as:

"..nonsense set to an infectious beat.."

Rock Out and The Thousand Names of God, of which he mentioned:

"..It's completely extraneous, the title... It's about soldiers being conned into going into battle, for like, business men. It isn't even a cause anymore.."

The band's lead single Rock Out was featured as the official theme song to WWE Unforgiven and in the films Hesher and Nitro Circus: The Movie.

The album cover was revealed on the front page of the group's official website on 11 June 2008.[2] Notable for being the band's first album since Overnight Sensation (1996) without the artwork of long-time collaborator Joe Petagno, the cover artwork is by Mark De Vito and features a Motörhead-themed coat of arms, with the shield quartered for each band member:

The Royal Arms of England for Lemmy in the top left corner;

The Y Ddraig Goch of Wales for Phil Campbell in the bottom right corner;

The Tre Kronor of Sweden for Mikkey Dee in the bottom left corner;

and Snaggletooth (the band's mascot) for the band as a whole.

Professional ratings

Aggregate scores
Source	Rating
Metacritic	63%[3]
Review scores
Source	Rating
Allmusic	[4]
Metal Hammer
Pitchfork Media	(7.2/10) [5]
PopMatters	[6]
World of Music	[7]
Blabbermouth	8/10[8]
The Guardian	[9]

The album was met with mostly positive reviews on release. Alex Henderson of Allmusic gave the album a positive review saying that "the classic Motörhead sound prevails, and forceful, in-your-face tracks such as "Buried Alive," "Runaround Man," "When the Eagle Screams," and "Time Is Right" sound like they could have been recorded 25 years earlier. Motorizer never pretends to be groundbreaking, but if the material is predictable, it is engagingly predictable." Cosmo Lee of Pitchfork Media gave a positive review, saying that it was an improvements over recent Motorhead albums and that: "Motörizer avoids the bland hard rock that larded up some of the band's recent records. Instead, its 11 tracks efficiently clock in at under 39 minutes. Lemmy turns 63 this year, but he still sounds half his age." The album debuted on Billboard chart at #82.[10] It peaked at #2 on the UK Rock & Metal chart, and at #5 on the German 'Offizielle Top 100' & US Independent charts. As with the band's last few albums, it did not make a massive impact on the general public, but saw dedicated sales in markets where they had a strong following. "We've never had a hit in America," remarked Lemmy. "We actually got in the top 100 this time… Number 89 [sic] and straight out again, but it's a start."[11]

All tracks are written by Kilmister, Campbell, Dee.

• Motörizer at AllMusic