During the recording of this album, Jimmy Miller was increasingly under the influence of heroin, at one point disappearing entirely from the studio and being found asleep at the wheel of his car.

[4] Miller had produced some of the Rolling Stones most heralded work from 1968 to 1973 but, after struggling through the sessions for 1973's Goats Head Soup, had been shown the door.

"In his autobiography White Line Fever Lemmy states: "Overkill was supposed to be something of a comeback album for Jimmy Miller, which is exactly what it turned out to be for him.

This album caught Lemmy at his most ferocious, hitting hard at the police in "Lawman", marriage and how his father left him and his mother in "Poison", television in "Talking Head" and show business in "All the Aces".

I got sick of him complaining, so I said, 'Right, you're gonna fucking sing one on this album'...he hated it, but really, he was a good singer, Eddie.

"During the recording of Bomber, Motörhead played the Reading Festival, performing alongside other acts like the Police and The Tourists.

Adrian Chesterman illustrated the album cover, depicting Lemmy, 'Fast' Eddie Clarke and a bug-eyed Phil 'Philthy Animal' Taylor bearing down from the gunner cockpits of a Heinkel 111 bomber in the Blitz.

Fascinated by military regalia, Lemmy insisted the plane be German because: "The bad guys make all the best shit".

In White Line Fever, Lemmy calls Bomber "a transitional record" but admits "there are a couple of really naff tracks on it, like 'Talking Head.'"

In 1980 interview with Sounds, Clarke compared the LP unfavourably to Ace of Spades, stating "Bomber felt wrong.

One critic suggests that the album is well regarded by the fans, and packed full of essential Motörhead tracks, with "Dead Men Tell No Tales", "Stone Dead Forever" and the title track itself being "phenomenally good" metal songs, adding that, with the exception of the bluesy "Step Down", the tracks are full of the characteristic sound of the classic line-up of Lemmy, Clarke and Taylor, with Clarke's solo in "All the Aces" described as "blistering" and Lemmy spitting out intentions to "poison his wife" in the life-reflecting "Poison" making it a sound of metal-dripping brilliance.

A special double CD reissue of the album was released in June 2005 to coincide with Motörhead's 30th anniversary tour.