Various Artists – Killed By Deaf: A Punk Tribute to Motörhead (Motörhead)
All formats
Out 31 October 2025
50 years of Motörhead has seen the merch machine go into overdrive. A Punk Tribute to Motörhead is shooting at an open goal.
Whoever came up with this idea for the 50th anniversary year of Motörhead knew they were onto a winner. Punks have always loved Motörhead, and certainly in their early years they weren’t really a metal band. Lemmy himself said they were a punk band with long hair “If you hadn’t seen what we looked like, you would have thought we were a punk band.“
Lemmy hung out at The Roxy and played bass in The Doomed with Dave Vanian, Rat Scabies and Captain Sensible before the Damned reformed to release Machine Gun Etiquette. The only real legacy of that time is their version of Ballroom Blitz with Lemmy’s recognisable bass on the B-side of the I Just Can’t Be Happy Today single (one of my favourite Damned tracks as it goes), and the Motördamn version of Over The Top, which surfaced nearly 30 years later (with Ballroom Blitz as B Side).
This new tribute album contains some big names from punk, and a couple of outliers. The thing is, apart from the crowning glory that is Lemmy performing bass and shared vocals on Neat Neat Neat with The Damned, it’s all Motörhead songs so how could it go wrong?
Some of the covers are stand out brilliant and all benefit from the existing familiarity with the song. There’s only a couple I didn’t take to immediately. The somewhat lacklustre vocal on Overkill by Soldiers Of Destruction let it down and ANWL manage to make Born To Raise Hell a little sedate and polished. However, there is no point in just doing a carbon copy and they are doing these songs their own way, plus Lemmy was mates with both bands so they get a free pass. Over time I will warm to them.
This collection would have raised its street cred and benefited highly from including Jonny Moped’s version of City Kids and Poison Idea’s take on Motorhead, the latter being the only band who could probably match the excesses of Motörhead at the peak of their powers, but those songs are already out there.
If I had to pick a top song, other then Neat Neat Neat, it would probably be The Bronx version of Over The Top, GBH’s Bomber or The Casualties’ take of The Hammer, with a snatch of Motörhead performing the last few seconds from No Sleep Til Hammersmith.
Timing wise they’ve pushed this out just in time for kids to buy it for their parents for Christmas, or Halloween…
Track list
1. Pennywise – Ace Of Spades
2. Rancid – Sex & Death
3. The Bronx – Over The Top
4. Lagwagon – Rock ‘N’ Roll
5. FEAR – The Chase Is Better Than The Catch
6. GBH – Bomber
7. Murphy’s Law – Stay Clean
8. Slaughterhouse – Love Me Like A Reptile
9. The Casualties – The Hammer
10. Anti-Nowhere League – Born To Raise Hell
11. Love Canal – Voices In The Sky
12. Soldiers of Destruction – Overkill
13. Wisdom In Chains – Iron Fist
14. Motörhead & The Damned – Neat Neat Neat
Links: https://motorhead.lnk.to/killedbydeaf
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All words by Nathan Brown. You can read more from Nathan on his Louder Than War archive over here.
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