And so here it is, the much -delayed, long-awaited recorded swansong of famed Motörhead drumming alumnus Phil Taylor – Little Villains’ Philthy Lies.

The first thing to say is don’t be expecting too much. The album is essentially a cleaned up set of studio jams and what sound like demos, left as were for authenticity but lovingly remastered by guitar playing vocalist James Childs. As somewhat of a masterstroke, Childs has elected to leave in the between song ‘banter’ giving the listener the chance to hear Taylor’s inimitable tones one more time in their natural habitat. And for this we must thank him one thousand times. And then some.

Musically, ‘head fans will find the Lemmy/Eddie/Philthy pastiche of I Am Dying either brilliant or annoying in the extreme, but for the most part the band (rounded out for the sessions by bassist Owen Street) sensibly avoid full on Motörhead worship; for the most part the band plough a sort of restrained desert rock furrow, with Childs’ voice at times carrying a whiff of Josh Homme about it, a feel he alternates with a more English vibe, kinda like The Catherine Wheel‘s Rob Dickinson.

In all honesty, there are only a couple of real musical highlights here that might make a disinterested bystander get involved; The excellent In The Head, which for reasons unknown reminds your reviewer of The Easybeats’ Friday on My Mind, and final track Get Out, which shows a good grasp of dynamics and shows that Taylor wasn’t just a heads down thrash n’bash merchant.

The obvious point of interest is what’s going to shift this album, nothing more and nothing less, but it might be nice to get out and see the re-energised post-Philthy version of the band when they get out on the road and give flesh to the great man’s final legacy. Worth a listen.

Philthy Lies is released on March 29th through Heavy Psych Sounds.