It’s impossible to listen to Yorkshire metalheads Asomvel without a smile on your face; But whilst for some it’ll be a smile of the shit-eating variety, high on the life-affirming nature of the band’s NWoBHM-inspired rip-roar, for others – possibly just as many – it’ll be a thin-lipped smirk of the ‘I can’t believe what I’m listening to’ kind…

And it’s easy to see why. Asomvel, when boiled down to their very essence, desire to make nothing other than the album that follows Overkill and Bomber in the Motörhead canon. And if you can see beyond the mere carbon-copycatisms of the likes of Smokeescreen and The Law Is The Law, then it has to be said World Shaker is going to present you with the most enjoyable thirty five minutes of listening you’ll have all year.

When they come to make the inevitable Lemmy biopic, central casting need look no further than Asomvel’s Ralph, who to all intents and purposes is Ian Fraser Kilmister circa 1978. And if guitarist Lenny Robinson and drummer Jani Pasanen don’t quite cut it so heroically looks-wise then they’ve got the sounds and then some. Robinson in particular gets it right, his wah-wahed Eddie Clarke sound getting an A+ for accuracy, and whilst Pasanen can’t decide sometimes between his Dee and his Taylor, the overall vibe is a s close to the ‘head as it’s possible to get…

… Except when the band ends up sounding like Tank, that is. If there’s one problem with this whole setup, it’s that Asomvel sometimes sound just a little on the cut-price side of things, leaving the listener wanting the hammer but having to make do with a filth hound instead, if you see what I mean. But, in the final washup, whilst plenty of bands – many of them a fair deal more celebrated than Asomvel – have gone in to the studio to try and tribute Lemmy and Co in some way, absolutely none of them have hit the nail on the head quite so squarely song wise as these guys. Whether that’s a cause for celebration or derision I’ll leave up to you, but I know which kind of smile I’m wearing right now…

World Shaker is out on May 3rd.