Jyl Millard - Ace Of Spades [Single]

Try and Make Me Records

June 18, 2009, 05:30 PM

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It's safe to say that most people within the music world, particularly most fans of heavy metal music, would agree that “Ace Of Spades” by Motorhead, is a remarkable heavy metal song. Its brutal, its aggressive, its loud and most importantly it’s one of the all time classic songs of not only its genre but its time as well. So, remixing such a timeless track would certainly be “risqué” to say the least. Jyl Millard didn’t seem to think so and after hearing his take on the Motorhead masterpiece, maybe he should have!

Jyl Millard has taken this song into a whole new musical direction, quite possibly the furthest direction you can take from heavy metal. Millard has given “Ace Of Spades” the electronic makeover and trust me he is no Gok Wan. Although Millard may gain some brownie points for sheer balls and creativity, these brownie points will probably be taken away from him as quickly as he was given them.

So what’s wrong with this version of the song? Well firstly, the song has been totally slowed down and basically ripped apart. The guitars have been replaced with Synths, Lemmy’s gruff and damaging vocals have been replaced with sluggish, over exuberant and painstakingly slow vocals, with the whole song basically sounding like its been dragged through a hedge backwards! Having been given the extreme remodel “Ace Of Spades” has lost, of course, the brutality and sheer force of the track. Instead of replacing the lost components of the song, Millard has just simply stripped the song down to its bear bones i.e. words, and replaced what was once a fast paced, well executed piece of heavy metal composition with one long, monotonous and tiresome electronic beat.

So what’s right with the track? Well, nothing really. The parts where Millard’s voice isn’t droning on over the music is about as good as the song gets and this really isn’t anything to shout about, since the music behind him is just as awful.

It may be harsh not to say anything good about this track but honestly there isn’t anything positive to say. Jyl Millard has obviously tried to make the song sexy and smouldering but instead “Ace Of Spades” has come off as vulgar and cheap. The problem is that the original song “Ace Of Spades” by Motorhead was about speed and viciousness and that’s what gave the song its appeal in the first place, so when that’s taken away, so is the reason to like it. It’s like slowing down “People = Shit” by Slipknot or “BYOB“ by System Of A Down, it would sound ridiculous and unfortunately this is exactly what Millard’s version of “Ace Of Spades” is, ridiculous.

Jyl Millard may have tried to be different and obscure with this remake, but instead of making his extreme take on “Ace Of Spades” a piece of brilliance, Millard has succeeded in making it a mockery of what was once a fine heavy metal song and although this is undoubtedly not Millard’s intention, it is what he has unfortunately produced. So like many good intention’s and ideas for covers before him, this one is a fail.

Take Limp Bizkit’s version of The Who’s classic, “Behind Blue Eyes”. It may have sounded good at the time, but the resulting product was abysmal. Hopefully this song alone will not define Millard as an artist and with Millard’s other outfit, Giant Jr, gaining rave reviews, maybe he should concentrate on their career rather than a solo one.

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