That still vital entity known as MOTÖRHEAD have navigated their leader Lemmy‘s death in 2016 with great dignity. The vaults have certainly been plundered to some degree: six volumes of live material under the “Lost Tapes” banner have been released to date, and last year’s “We Take No Prisoners” singles comp neatly wrapped up one of the band’s most fruitful decades. But in general, surviving members and those who oversee their commercial fortunes and ongoing cultural impact have been reluctant to endlessly remix or repackage every last morsel in the MOTÖRHEAD discography.

Occasionally, however, something pops up that demands attention. “The Manticore Tapes” was originally recorded in the summer of 1976, at prog wizards EMERSON, LAKE & PALMER‘s studio in Fulham, London. The first studio sessions to feature the (first) classic lineup of Lemmy, Fast Eddie Clarke and Phil “Philthy Animal” Taylor, these songs sit chronologically between the material later released as “On Parole”, and MOTÖRHEAD‘s self-titled debut album, which was recorded and released the following year. For dedicated fans of true-to-the-bone rock ‘n’ roll, this is glittering treasure, irrespective of its quality. There was something magical about the three-man lineup that would go on to make such vaunted monoliths as “Overkill”, “Bomber” and “Ace Of Spades”, and even though “The Manticore Tapes” captures MOTÖRHEAD in a transitional moment, it seems reasonable to assert that these recordings are the true starting point of the band we know and love.

From this moment on, MOTÖRHEAD were unstoppable, but the material on “The Manticore Tapes” depicts three musicians finding their feet in real time. In truth, we are a year or two from the ferocious juggernaut of “Overkill” and it shows. The real revelation is that these three men were plainly put on this Earth to make music together. Even as their sound begin to form, the chemistry between Lemmy and Phil Taylor is self-evident.

On their rambunctious cover of Eddie Holland‘s, Holland-Dozier-Holland-penned “Leavin’ Here”, the rhythm section is off and away, locked in and militantly focused. On a nascent reading of “Motörhead” (a song Lemmy originally wrote for HAWKWIND),the brutal rock ‘n’ roll of the early ’80s begins to emerge, albeit still with the snake-hipped looseness of earlier lineups. Meanwhile, Fast Eddie Clarke is a one-man tornado, effortlessly twisting the blues into speed-fueled shapes and generating almost as much unholy noise as his counterparts. Everything would eventually become louder than everything else, of course. “The Manticore Tapes” will never rival “Ace Of Spades” for excitement or quality, but the sound of an explosive, undeniable rock ‘n’ roll band revving their engines is unmistakable. A valuable history lesson.