Accept: The Rise Of Chaos

ACCEPT: THE RISE OF CHAOS (2017)

1) Die By The Sword; 2) Hole In The Head; 3) The Rise Of Chaos; 4) Koolaid; 5) No Regrets; 6) Analog Man; 7) What's Done Is Done; 8) Worlds Colliding; 9) Carry The Weight; 10) Race To Extinction.

Yes, it is that season again — the rise of chaos, where everybody drinks too much Koolaid with no regrets, leading to worlds colliding where people race to extinction, dying by the sword with holes in their heads. And this means another Accept album that sounds just like any Accept album since Blood Of The Nations, just as the rise of chaos circa 2017 looks just like any other rise of chaos at any given point in the life of human civilization.

There is absolutely no point in discussing the music here; all I can say is that there are no expe­riments with the sound whatsoever — all the songs differ from each other strictly in terms of tempo — and that not a single riff has struck me as being particularly outstanding, though, to be fair, Hoffmann is still spending time trying to come up with new ones: they simply all end up sounding like variations on the old ones. The only thing that makes this less of a problem than it was on Blind Rage is that the album is notably shorter: ten new songs is all she wrote, and, frankly, there is no need for an Accept album to ever be longer than 45 minutes, unless your casual adrenaline supply exceeds everybody else's.

The lyrical content, while trivial, is another matter: more than ever before, The Rise Of Chaos sounds like a wholesome concept album about the sordid state of things in the world at large — a problem that has always stayed relevant for Accept, but now more than ever, as they grow old and, consecutively, more and more bitter and skeptical about the piss-poor progress of humanity. Clearly, this should endear their attitude to my own heart, as I also grow older and more bitter and skeptical about the same things, but they just regularly go overboard with this thing, nowhere more so than on ʽAnalog Manʼ, where part of the blame on the overall moral decay is laid on digital technologies ("I was born in a cave, when stereo was all the rage... now there's flat screens in 3D, my cell phone's smarter than me, I can't keep up, my brains are beginning to burn"). You know you've really crossed over into bizarre territory when the familiar gang choruses of DOGS ON LEAAADS! and BALLS TO THE WALL! are replaced with UPDATE AND DOWNLOAD!, and silly diatribes like that do a poor service to Accept's general stand on human issues.

On the other side of the equation there's ʽKoolaidʼ, a welcome historical reminder of the 1978 Jim Jones nightmare as an allegory for today's problems with mass brainwashing — Tornillo's admo­nition of "don't drink the Koolaid, no matter what the preacher says!" truly deserves his highest notes, and while I could certainly live without a detailed account of the events in the verses (then again, perhaps a brief history lesson is good for Accept fans), this is the only song on the album that slightly transcends the state of generic ranting and raving, just because they happened to single out a pretty damn good analogy for modern times.

Other than that, Rise Of Chaos simply ticks off three more years of Accept's longevity: given that Hoffmann has only just turned 58, and that Mark Tornillo, though somewhat older, is still going very strong as a vocalist (and, cynically, is expendable anyway), this is probably far from the last Accept album in the making, unless, of course, they happen to be true about the ʽRace To Extinc­tionʼ, and we're all drinking Koolaid over the next three years. With this in mind, I am going straight ahead to update and upload, adding my own two cents to the downfall of humanity.

Accept: Restless And Live

ACCEPT: RESTLESS AND LIVE (2017)

1) Stampede; 2) Stalingrad; 3) Hellfire; 4) London Leatherboys; 5) Living For Tonite; 6) 200 Years; 7) Demon's Night; 8) Dying Breed; 9) Final Journey; 10) From The Ashes We Rise; 11) Losers And Winners; 12) No Shelter; 13) Shadow Soldiers; 14) Midnight Mover; 15) Starlight; 16) Restless And Wild; 17) Son Of A Bitch; 18) Pandemic; 19) Dark Side Of My Heart; 20) The Curse; 21) Flash Rockin' Man; 22) Bulletproof; 23) Fall Of The Empire; 24) Fast As A Shark; 25) Metal Heart; 26) Teutonic Terror; 27) Balls To The Wall.

Considering how much respect this 21st century Accept has been getting in the metal community, it is probably inevitable that sooner or later they would summarize it all with a live album — but I guess nobody really expected such a gigantic package: a BluRay / DVD video of a complete per­formance from a 2015 festival in Balingen, Germany, plus a 2-CD live album with twenty seven live tracks (almost two and a half hours worth of music!) culled from different venues of the 2015 tour; amusingly, most of them are from Russia — St. Petersburg, Moscow, even Yekaterinburg... yes, we Russians love our sweaty, masculine (and somewhat gay) Teutonic metal. Then again, they did not insert a piece of the USSR anthem inside ʽStalingradʼ for nothing.

The track listing is almost equally spread between the songs from the Tornillo era (predictably focusing on Blind Rage) and the classics, with the proportion of the latter steadily increasing as the pieced-together show draws to a close. It should also be noted that there are some serious lineup changes: after Blind Rage, Herman Frank quit the band, replaced by Uwe Lulis (formerly of Rebellion), and this means that Hoffmann bears the largest brunt of responsibility for all the lead guitar work — not that he has any problems with this. In fact, not that anybody has any prob­lems with anything on the album: this is two and a half hours of non-stop kick ass metal with barely a single mistake produced by anybody. They just roll on like a perfectly oiled machine, charged up 100% and disciplined to a tee — ironically, the Führer would probably be proud of these boys, even if all of their songs (nominally) rail against the Führer.

The only tiny problem I see is that, as technically awesome as this guy Tornillo is (you just don't find 60-year old singers every day who could execute all these gruesome vocal parts night after night), his work on the classics shows that he cannot properly replace Dirkschneider — for one thing, he does not have his high vibrato, so the fabulous choruses of songs like ʽRestless And Wildʼ and ʽFlash Rockin' Manʼ come off flat, since he just roars through them instead of vibra­ting like crazy. For another thing, he does not have much of an interesting personality — like everybody else here, he tears through the material with machine-like precision, where Udo would make himself look a little more humane and even funny on occasion. But hey, this is why Udo is U.D.O., and Mark Tornillo is just... Mark Tornillo.

As for the setlist, I will not even begin trying to identify the highlights. Stylistically, the old shit and the new shit mesh seamlessly, especially because the old shit selections are intentionally chosen to match the new shit — so we hardly ever get any of Accept's classic «oddities» like ʽPrincess Of The Dawnʼ: this here is fist-clenching, blood-curdling rock'n'roll from start to finish. Of the new shit, ʽNo Shelterʼ features a particularly intense bass / lead guitar battle that blows away the studio equivalent; and ʽPandemicʼ matures into a modern metal classic as its fade-out is extended into a climactic-epic coda. Of the old shit, I am particularly amused that they decided to unearth ʽSon Of A Bitchʼ, which may have been the single most ridiculous thing they originally recorded with Udo ("cock suckin' motherfucker, I was right!" always goes off with a bang). And altogether, perhaps the best compliment to the album is that I actually sat through it twice (that's a whoppin' five hours of non-stop metal crunch!) and genuinely enjoyed most of it. Good old metal'n'roll entertainment — well worth a thumbs up, even without Udo.

Accept: Blind Rage

ACCEPT: BLIND RAGE (2014)

1) Stampede; 2) Dying Breed; 3) Dark Side Of My Heart; 4) Fall Of The Empire; 5) Trail Of Tears; 6) Wanna Be Free; 7) 200 Years; 8) Bloodbath Mastermind; 9) From The Ashes We Rise; 10) The Curse; 11) Final Journey; 12) Thrown To The Wolves.

Riding high on the national stereotype wave, I would say it is a little less surprising to see such stern, brutal discipline from our German metal friends than it is from Lemmy Kilmister and his unruly gang in Motörhead. But even so, it is a little hilarious to watch 21st century Accept settle into this unwavering mode of releasing, every two years, a new album that sounds exactly like its predecessor. I guess it also saves the reviewer extra work: all I really need to say about Blind Rage is that if you liked Blood Of The Nations, and then you liked Stalingrad without paying attention to the fact that it was the same record with minor variations, you are, without the slight­est doubt, going to like Blind Rage — and, as it is now made obvious, probably every next Accept record as long as Hoffmann keeps on pushing these riffs and Tornillo keeps up his best Dirkschneider impression.

I don't want to talk about good songs, I don't want to talk about bad songs, I just have to confirm that the band still sounds very much like the red bull on the album cover. The guitar tones have all the crunch, the lead vocalist has all the banshee credibility, the gang choruses are firmly in place, the drummer bashes his kit like Satan's page, and the band as a whole seems to have com­plete confidence in itself and whatever it is doing. This is all true, and yet, and yet, and yet I still happen to hold empty hope that perhaps, one day, we might yet see another ʽPrincess Of The Dawnʼ from these guys — you know, from the old days when they could not only kick ass, but throw in something genuinely creative and mind-blowing from time to time.

As it is, just brace yourself for one more hour of ball-crushing bullpower. When you see that the first song is called ʽStampedeʼ, you just know what it is going to be — fast, furious, aggressive, quickly building up towards the big gang chorus, which is, of course, "STAMPEDE!... STAM­PEDE!..." interspersed with Tornillo's one-liners, and culminating in a lengthy Hoffmann solo. Then the second track slows down a little, and becomes a lyrical celebration of heavy metal, with references to black sabbaths, purple hazes, silver mountains, screaming with vengeance, and phrases like "the zeppelin led its voyage thru skies of purple deep", which might fairly well offend both Jimmy Page and Ritchie Blackmore, but seems to represent a respectful tribute for these guys: "and we salute you — The Last of the Dying Breed!". Well, silly as it is, Accept themselves are the last of the dying breed: this vibe that they still brew so well belongs so utterly to the 20th century that it does sometimes amaze me how they have managed to carry it over so well into the 21st. Who cares if all the songs sound the same, really, or if they are completely incapable of coming up with another ʽBalls To The Wallʼ-level hook? It's all in the vibe, man.

Subsequent themes involve anti-imperialism, anti-militarism, prophecies of doom, bloodbaths, the fall of mankind, and the eternal struggle of good versus evil — you know the regular drift. Some choruses are catchier than others (ʽFrom The Ashes We Riseʼ is very singalong-able), some tempos are faster than others (ʽTrail Of Tearsʼ is probably the fastest song about the Indian plight ever written — I had no idea that the Cherokee pioneered speed metal to wreak vengeance on the white man), but writing about this in any sort of detail should be relegated to highly specialized Accept fan boards, or, at least, professional metal magazines.

So let me just conclude with this minor detail: it is actually worth seeking out the edition with the bonus track ʽThrown To The Wolvesʼ, since the song (an AC/DC-themed anthem of sexual hunger) begins with an overdriven, ultraloud riff that threatens to eat you alive more convincingly than any of the melodies on the «proper» album. Maybe they decided to leave it off the main body because of the theme — Blind Rage, is after all, more of a conceptual, «socially-relevant» album. But it's funny that the apex of their ferociousness is reached just as they leave behind the social topics and embark on a «fleshy» trip instead. Which just goes to show that the best heavy metal is, after all, just yer basic rock'n'roll — goes best with sex, rather than social protest.

Accept: Stalingrad

ACCEPT: STALINGRAD (2012)

1) Hung, Drawn And Quartered; 2) Stalingrad; 3) Hellfire; 4) Flash To Bang Time; 5) Shadow Soldiers; 6) Revolu­tion; 7) Against The World; 8) Twist Of Fate; 9) The Quick And The Dead; 10) Never Forget; 11) The Galley.

Considering the generally warm welcome for Blood Of The Nations, a quick follow-up was most like­ly inevitable, and almost as likely predictable. With its Teutonic balls, nerve, and verve so finely displayed for all to see, could they have lost it in but two years' time? They probably could, if they saw some reason to change the formula; but the early 2010s did not exactly spear­head a revolution in heavy metal values (or in any other values, for that matter), so what you get is another piece of work in full accordance with the spirit of Metal Heart.

The title might make one think of some conceptual «metal opera» revolving around World War II — but, in a way, the majority of German metal bands have always revolved around World War II one way or another, and the only song here that addresses the topic directly is the title track, re­plete with Hoffmann's kitschy guitar recreation of the melody of the Anthem of the Soviet Union in the coda section. Otherwise, Stalingrad is just the current code name for the general atmo­sphere of merciless brutality and the world's dog-eat-dog nature which supplies 90% of the re­quired oxygen for Accept. (Together with the album sleeve, it also looks and feels suspiciously like the packaging to some strategy-based video game — somebody in the band must have had registered for a crash course in modern marketology in the interim).

In terms of energy, precision, volume, instrument mix, and other technicalities it all sounds exact­ly the same as Blood Of The Nations — some fans point out that Stalingrad is somewhat more «melodic», which I decode as «it has some slower songs on it», but slow or fast, it's all heavy and brutal anyway, no pandering whatsoever to the metal balladry sector. Riff, gang chorus, riff, gang chorus, solo, gang chorus, build-up to final blow-up, repeat formula eleven times with minor vari­ations — nothing new.

Alas, nothing new also in the sense that the main problem stays the same: just like Blood Of The Nations, Stalingrad does not have even one fresh riff — most are minuscule variations on what already used to be. Some of the gang choruses are catchy (at least, when you look at the title of ʽHung, Drawn And Quarteredʼ or ʽAgainst The Worldʼ, you immediately remember how they went), but the melodies have not improved. The only thing that saves them is the classic crunchy Accept guitar tone — as long as Hoffmann sticks to that tone (and it looks like he will be carrying it off to Heaven, or Hell, when he goes), I cannot complain while the music is on.

Come to think of it, Metal Heart did not have a ton of great riffs, either — that album, too, rode primarily on the strength of its choruses, which might be the reason why Hoffmann explicitly chose it as the «role model» for this next stage in the band's career. Wrong as I may be, it seems to me that to come up with something like one little intro to ʽBalls To The Wallʼ takes far more genius than it takes to come up with an entire Stalingrad — where, so it seems, newcomer Mark Tornillo has completely taken over the function of «emotional jackhammer» from the resident guitarists. But it is also evident now that Tornillo is even more of a one-trick pony than Udo used to be — capable of functioning only in the scream register — and as good as he is at it, the show does begin to get tedious after a while.

As usual, speed saves, so if you want to get a rewarding taste of the record, go for the faster num­bers first — ʽHung, Drawn And Quarteredʼ, ʽFlash To Bang Timeʼ, ʽThe Quick And The Deadʼ, etc. — then check out the Soviet National Anthem for a quick laugh, and then go back to your old copy of Restless And Wild, unless you are a modern production freak (in which case, get your old copy of Restless And Wild and have it remastered). On the positive side, at least this ain't no sellout — and now we have an active countdown going on on how many more years (decades? centuries?) this band will continue to retain its holy integrity.

Check "Stalingrad" (CD) on Amazon
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Accept: Blood Of The Nations

ACCEPT: BLOOD OF THE NATIONS (2010)

1) Beat The Bastards; 2) Teutonic Terror; 3) The Abyss; 4) Blood Of The Nations; 5) Shades Of Death; 6) Locked And Loaded; 7) Kill The Pain; 8) Rolling Thunder; 9) Pandemic; 10) New World Comin'; 11) No Shelter; 12) Bucket Full Of Hate; 13*) Time Machine.

But what is this? Fourteen years into the future, and once again Accept are riding the waves? Did anyone see this coming? Actually, maybe yes. After all, Wolf Hoffmann did not have much of a stunning career in the interim, and in between the perspective of retiring to sell Sauerkraut and staying in the big leagues with the big name, it was at least a 50-50 chance that, sooner or later, we'd see the familiar logo once again.

So the band is back, with a mixed line-up. Hoffmann and Baltes represent the original forefathers; surprisingly, they managed to re-recruit second guitarist Herman Frank from the Balls To The Wall lineup, but at the expense of losing the original drummer (Stefan Schwarzmann replaces Kaufman). No matter; the sound is decidedly Accept-able (har har), with all the brutal tones and jagged riffs and rigid metallic beats faithfully preserved and worshipped.

The biggest concern, naturally, was with the vocalist; Udo did not care to participate in the re­union this time, being fairly happy with his solo career. This time, however, the band chose their new vocalist carefully, avoiding the David Reece blunder of 1989: Udo's replacement, a little-known metal belter called Mark Tornillo, is unquestionably the closest substitute for Dirkschnei­der that they could find. His voice is a little lower, so you cannot confuse the two, but just as ras­py, provocative and powerful, enough to eliminate the cheese factor.

This in itself gives a transparent hint as to Hoffmann's goals: make, once again, a «quintessential­ly Accept» record, something that would faithfully recreate the form and spirit of something like Metal Heart. It works. Every single song off Blood Of The Nations sounds like 1985 all over again — not a single shred of the influence of nu-metal or any of those other silly unnecessary innova­tions that the hard-rocking kids had come up with over the last decade. Just straightforward uncompromising metal for the masses, all the way through.

There are problems, though. The nearly seventy-minute long duration is not one of them: the ma­terial is monotonous, yes, but also very even in quality, so you can shorten or extend it at will, or change the running order of the tracks with no loss of conceptuality. The real bad piece of news is that there is not a single riff on here that would swipe me off my feet — all the best ones we've al­ready had on one or another of their previous releases, with only the tiniest of variations, and, come to think of it, the same applies to the worst ones.

So what happened is that, in his respectable drive to bring back the power of Metal Heart, Hoff­mann predictably bumped in the predictable hole. When Accept were recording Metal Heart, the pervasive idea was, «Let's record some songs to kick ass with!» Here, the idea is «Let's record another Metal Heart!» — feel the difference? Many of the fans, judging by the rave reviews, ob­viously do not, but I sure do. All of these tracks — with the exception of 'Kill The Pain', a generic and severely trashable power ballad — are enjoyable, but not a single one stays home with you the same way an 'Up To The Limit' or a 'Dogs On Leads' was able to stay.

On the other hand, I did say that Blood Of The Nations honours not only the form of Accept, but its spirit as well. The sound is awesome, and I can totally understand the positive reception: if the collective brain of the band has not been spared by time, at least its collective brawn is firmly in place, and with a heavy metal outfit like this, you never really know which one is the more im­por­tant. For an Accept or a metal fan in general, the record is a must-have; for those who like the­ir riffage to be more inventive, however, it is passable. A brawny, not brainy, thumbs up.

Check "Blood Of The Nations" (CD) on Amazon
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Accept: The Final Chapter

ACCEPT: THE FINAL CHAPTER (1997/1998)

1) Starlight; 2) London Leatherboys; 3) I Don't Wanna Be Like You; 4) Breaker; 5) Slaves To Metal; 6) Princess Of The Dawn; 7) Restless And Wild; 8) Son Of A Bitch; 9) This One's For You; 10) Bulletproof; 11) Too High To Get It Right; 12) Metal Heart; 13) Fast As A Shark; 14) Balls To The Wall; 15) What Else; 16) Sodom & Gomorra; 17) The Beast Inside; 18) Bad Habits Die Hard; 19) Stone Evil; 20) Death Row.

Another live album, originally released as All Areas — Worldwide with 14 tracks; once it be­came known that, disappointed with the way Predator came out, the band finally decided to drop the line, it was hastily renamed The Final Chapter and re-released with 6 more tracks slapped on from the Death Row tour (the other 14 were from the Objection Overruled one).

This one is strictly for the fans, though; Accept live are only desirable when they're able to bare all of their teeth without the risk of exposing yellow decay or an occasional black hole or two, and while I cannot find any such flaws in Staying A Life (apart from its ungrammatical title), these late-period concerts show just enough wear to become somewhat expendable. No hard feelings — nobody is getting younger, except for those who were born old, like Neil Young — but no significant desire to revisit this particular record ever again.

For one thing, you will frequently hear how time has miraculously spared Udo's voice, but that is not entirely true: it is fairly obvious that he can't hit those shrill high notes any longer already on the opening track — he roars the chorus to 'Starlight' instead of wailing it, which makes the song so much more ordinary. Chunks of 'Fast As A Shark', 'Metal Heart', and 'Son Of A Bitch' are also botched, not fatally, but enough to eliminate the possibility of these versions ever becoming as much loved as the originals. In fact, he seems more confident when singing new material now, either from being somewhat bored with the oldies or simply because the new songs are better suited for his diminished vocal power. (But do not get me wrong: the basic strength of his delive­ry has not, indeed, suffered one bit).

For another thing, all the tracks here fall into two categories: note-for-note recreations of the stu­dio recordings (particularly the new material from Death Row, where the only difference is lack of excessive studio processing) or slightly re-arranged — almost always for the worst — oldies. The hardest blow has been dealt in the direction of 'Princess Of The Dawn', whose magnificent riff is simply GONE, replaced by a bunch of boring power chords. I don't get the joke. I don't understand the necessity of inserting a bass solo in it either (the extra two bars of bass intro to 'London Leatherboys' were quite enough). Another unpleasant moment is dropping the obligatory "audience participation" bit on the 'Für Elise' in­strumental passage in 'Metal Heart'; I do not share the feeling that getting a metalhead audience to chant Beethoven in a crowded stadium is either educational or amusing. But that's personal pre­ference, of course.

Still, it's a decent enough document, and a decent enough performance selection; I can't deny having had the usual headbanging fun listening to it, and it's only at the dire insistence of the brain department that I'm giving it a thumbs down. A must have for fans, though, even if I'm pretty sure there are more convincing bootleg recordings from those tours available for their plea­sure. These official «highlight selections» frequently have a reputation of having been selected by industry people born with cotton wads in their ears.

Accept: Predator

ACCEPT: PREDATOR (1996)

1) Hard Attack; 2) Crossroads; 3) Making Me Scream; 4) Diggin' In The Dirt; 5) Lay It Down; 6) It Ain't Over Yet; 7) Predator; 8) Crucified; 9) Take Out The Crime; 10) Don't Give A Damn; 11) Run Through The Night; 12) Primitive.

Again, this isn't awful, but the band sounds really tired, as if the invisible hand of fate had roun­ded all the members up right after their having run an up-the-hill marathon and placed them in the studio with no creative ideas, no prepared material, and a total lack of commitment. A band of one notch less quality than Accept, under such conditions, would have produced some monstro­sity; Predator isn't one, but the end results clearly showed that the band was so much out of steam that it was high time to call it a day.

It's funny, but in the light of Predator even the endless streak of "gang choruses" on Death Row seems refreshing and memorable. Predator cuts down on much of the heaviness, cuts down even more seriously on the speed aspect, features a slicker, less involving production style from vete­ran hair metal producer Michael Wagener, and even reintroduces Peter Baltes on vocals on a couple tracks (they're not power ballads this time, but they're still pretty so-so). The riffs are most­ly recycled from their own and other people's songs, and even Udo sounds disinterested. To make matters worse, the album closer 'Primitive' may just be the silliest and ugliest Accept song ever put on record: it's an unfortunate experiment at making some sort of ugly industrial-metal hybrid, quite unsuitable for Accept's overall style.

All of this calls for an unquestionable thumbs down, but as long as Accept aren't truly betraying their essence, as they did on Eat The Heat, there is, and will always be, at least something redee­ming about each of their records, and, in the end, 'Hard Attack', 'Don't Give A Damn', 'Crucified', and 'Making Me Scream' are all decent rockers with plenty of headbanging power. 'Run Through The Night' is actually one of their better "rocking ballads", with curious jangling guitar arrange­ments from Hoffmann (he is in charge of all the guitarwork on the album again). So there's no reason for the fans to stay away from it; people have been known to end their careers on notes far more pitiful than Predator, and, in fact, we can only applaud Accept for their wisdom — once they perceived that the thing was no longer working smoothly, they just packed it in, instead of stubbornly sticking around, wasting money and good old CD plastic.

Accept: Death Row

ACCEPT: DEATH ROW (1994)

1) Death Row; 2) Sodom And Gomorra; 3) The Beast Inside; 4) Dead On!; 5) Guns 'R' Us; 6) Like A Loaded Gun; 7) What Else; 8) Stone Evil; 9) Bad Habits Die Hard; 10) Prejudice; 11) Bad Religion; 12) Generation Clash II; 13) Writing On The Wall; 14) Drifting Away; 15) Pomp And Circumstance.

This isn't bad. But if you want to get a decent idea of what this record sounds like, try taking a deep breath and yelling out all the song titles, in a row, taking note of my brief comments: "DEATH ROW!" (mid-tempo, martial-like, as if you were sending someone in that direction); "SODOM AND GOMORRA!" (fast, indignant, as if this is where you were living in); "THE BEAST INSIDE!" (mid-tempo, sneeringly, like a cross between Punch and Mephisto); "DEAD ON!" (slow, with a good mixture of self-importance and machismo); "GUNS 'R' US!" (mid-tem­po, with a modicum of pride, as befits someone who could have this written on his door); "LIKE A LOADED GUN!" (mid-tempo, stern, could be from an imaginatory Terminator soundtrack!); "STONE EVIL!" (mid-tempo, ominous, don't go there or it will tear you limb from limb); "BAD HABITS DIE HARD!" (fast, a little bit à la Dirty Harry, sounds great right before you whomp that sucker); "PREJUDICE!" (mid-tempo, boring, out of steam); "BAD RELIGION!" (mid-tempo, boring, completely out of steam).

Death Row is every critic's dream — it is an album that's more formulaic than the critic's own approach; if musicians can be so predictable and derivative, why can't people that write about the music? One riff per song (not all the riffs are good), one gang chorus per song, and not even Udo can elevate this to a higher level because he frankly sounds disinterested: like a seasoned pro, he gives it his all, but he doesn't try even remotely to give it something extra.

The album makes good use of the allowed length of the CD — for instance, instead of one pom­pous, unnecessary instrumental, we have two (in a row!), and it also allows the band to offer us a remake of 'Generation Clash', with Udo on vocals this time (it doesn't work much better than the first time, though). This means that you can pretty much shut the album off after 'Bad Religion', but not every dedicated fan will probably be able to sit straight through everything else: the stiff formula gets so mind-numbing eventually that one can honestly become ashamed about letting one's brain gather dust on the nearby shelf for so long.

Technically, this is Hoffmann's show all the way — he handles lead and rhythm duties, making the arrangements seem a bit sparse. He's also trying to be inventive, throwing on wah-wah and other effects to make the proceedings more "brutal"; in the process, the band pretty much invents "nu-metal" with the title track ('Death Row' does not at all sound unlike Korn and Limp Bizkit). He also tries to brush up on his classical influences with the reproduction of Khachaturian's 'Sabre Dance' theme in 'Sodom & Gomorra' — pure kitsch but quite refreshing in the overall con­text of the album, I must say.

Overlong, uninventive, curiously lifeless, this is a serious letdown after the promises of Objec­tion Overruled; nevertheless, lower your expectations, throw away your ambitions, and you'll still have enough to get your ass kicked properly. Thumbs down from the brain, but the heart insists on having a tight E.P. shaped from the album's four or five best tracks and thereby proving that in 1994, the band was still going relatively strong.

Accept: Objection Overruled

ACCEPT: OBJECTION OVERRULED (1993)

1) Objection Overruled; 2) I Don't Wanna Be Like You; 3) Protectors Of Terror; 4) Slaves To Metal; 5) All Or Nothing; 6) Bulletproof; 7) Amamos La Vida; 8) Sick, Dirty And Mean; 9) Donation; 10) Just By My Own; 11) This One's For You.

The little blunder is over: Reece is out, Udo is back, having lost neither his honour nor his powers: six years without Accept haven't impacted his singing in the least (actually, he'd been doing pretty much the same old thing with his own band, U.D.O.). Nor has anything else been impacted: Objec­tion Overruled sounds as if neither hair metal nor grunge ever happened. Just more of the old supertight metallic rock'n'roll, crisply produced and sounding quite close to you, without the echoey effects of Metal Heart; as if the Metal Gods finally decided to come down from above and have fun with their fans on the small stage of a local bar — without ever forgetting that they're Gods and the fans are scum in their faces, though.

As far as "reunion" efforts go, Objection Overruled is excellent, and since no one expects any more musical revolutions from Accept anyway, perfectly enjoyable as simply more classy mate­rial from these guys — classy and uncompromising. Brutal riffs, catchy choruses, passion and power above pathos, and Udo and Hoffmann battling for attention as usual. There are misfires: the power ballad 'Amamos La Vida' is somewhat boring, the marching anthem 'All Or Nothing' is somewhat silly, and the instrumental 'Just By My Own' is somewhat excessive. But if we are studying Accept in chronological order, this little weakness they have for over-the-top ballads and anthems is well-known to us, and as long as it doesn't overwhelm the album, it's possible to live with it like it's possible to live with a hump on your shoulders or smallpox traces on an other­wise beautiful face.

On the other hand, the rockers are a ton of fun — like the title track, where Udo pleads not guilty to an unforgiving chorus jury of his guitar players over blinding speed riffs, or like the traditional fuck-you hate peon of 'I Don't Wanna Be Like You', or the double-edged macho slash of 'Protec­tors Of Terror' (that's them others) and 'Slaves To Metal' (that's the band).

A minor surprise is 'Donation' — which sounds exactly like prime time AC/DC in terms of lyrics, music, and singing; although I'm not sure, I think it was consciously intended as a tribute to the band, given the line 'there she was, shaking more than my foundation' (cf. AC/DC's 'Shake Your Foundations'). Actually, ano­ther nod to their Aussie brethren can be found on 'I Don't Wanna Be Like You', whose main riff bears an uncanny similarity to 'Sin City' and whose lyrics include lines like 'the walls can be shaking, the earth could be quaking'. This may be upsetting to people who prefer Accept as a much more refined, and maybe even much deeper, version of AC/DC, but there's no question that the German band, from the start, owed quite a bit to the Young brothers, and I find nothing wrong about doing a song or two directly in the AC/DC style, especially if they do it well, which they do. No one would probably want to see them put out another Eat The Heat instead — right?

Of course, they already sound a bit out of time, no longer as sincerely menacing as before, but time slowly levels these effects, and for today's listeners, Objection Overruled may easily kick as much ass as Balls To The Wall. My rock'n'roll heart was perfectly happy with it, anyway, and thumbs up were always guaranteed.

Accept: Eat The Heat

ACCEPT: EAT THE HEAT (1989)

1) X-T-C; 2) Prisoner; 3) Love Sensation; 4) Chain Reaction; 5) D-Train; 6) Generation Clash; 7) Turn The Wheel; 8) Mistreated; 9) Stand 4 What U R; 10) Hellhammer; 11) Break The Ice.

With each new account of yet another glorious Accept album, I risk the risk of passing for a devoted metalhead, which I am frankly not. What with all the diversity and complexity that, to­day, characterizes the heavy metal genre, at heart it is still fairly silly and clichéd, and, for me, the deal with every metal album I listen to is simple — is this particular album strong enough to make me, for a few moments at least, forget about the silliness of it all? Are the riffs powerful enough to overcome the stench of machismo? Is the singer superhuman enough for my organism to recognize him as a true rather than a false prophet? Very few albums, very few bands actually manage to pass that test, and Accept are one of the lucky few that had this lucky streak for a long, long time — half a decade at least, a whole eternity of music-making by pop standards.

But if Russian Roulette contained only the first signs of an upcoming headache, then Eat The Heat is hangover in full flight. Udo Dirkschneider left the band due to a creative falling out with Hoffmann, reluctant to pursue a more commercial, "hair-metal" style direction, and nothing but a blind, uncontrolled desire to get more airplay explains the band's decision to replace him with a new frontman. That was an American, going by the name of David Reece, very little known in heavy rock circles outside his former local base in Minneapolis; but I dare say that it would have made little difference even if they had had the good fortune to pick someone of the high stature of Ronnie James Dio or Bruce Dickinson instead.

Because it isn't just that Reece's vocals, powerful as they are on their own, are no match for Udo's one-in-a-million powerhouse screaming. More important is that Reece was a nobody — due to his newcomer status, he could hardly have much creative influence on Eat The Heat. The songs, as usual, are credited to "Accept" for music and "Deaffy" (a pseudonym of Hoffmann's wife, Ga­by Hauke) for lyrics, and it probably wouldn't be much of an exaggeration to say that it is mostly Hoff­mann himself who is responsible for the band's new sound.

Eat The Heat isn't exactly "bad" — for instance, it goes very easy on pathetic power ballads, where 'Mistreated' (no relation to the vastly superior Deep Purple/Rainbow song) is the only seri­ous offender, and the aggressive rock songs still bear traces of the old Accept crunch. Yet every­thing, every single song has been recast in the dominating hair-metal mold: the production is cleaner and glossier, the guitar tones are brighter and less frightening, and the catchy choruses seem to emphasize "brute power" over "intelligent hatred", so that the simple average lad off the street wouldn't be turned off by too much scariness.

Alas, the problem is that in this corner of the market, Accept were unfit for the competition. All they could do was lose the old fans, pissed off at this change of direction — and fail to bring in legions of new ones, already well-satisfied with the likes of Poison and Cinderella. Of course, it was a gamble where one could theoretically win, like Alice Cooper did with Trash; but Trash, released the same year, was a far more intelligently crafted record than Eat The Heat — for one thing, it sacrificed none of Cooper's personality, ensuring its own identity among the crowd, whereas no personality whatsoever is evident on Eat The Heat.

I might also add that musically, the record is pretty lazy — completely lost in the effort to com­mercialize the sound, Hoffmann had forgotten to write any original riffs. One listen to the ope­ning track, 'X-T-C', is enough to give you a general impression of the entire thing: everything sounds very powerful, but you know you've heard it all before, and you know the main emphasis here is on making you just blindly headbang to the music until you reach the chorus, which is the point at which you're supposed to become happy. This isn't so much heavy metal as it is bland arena-rock with crunchier overtones. And this certainly isn't a true Accept record.

In terms of individual songs, there is nothing to discuss. I am amused by the somber chorus of 'Generation Clash', a song whose message could have been much stronger had it been better backed up in terms of music, and by the rousing chorus of 'Hell­hammer' ('HELL HAMMER, HELL, HELL HAMMER!'), so it might be fun to think about covering these two in a more con­vincing manner if, by any chance, you're in a metal band (or, for that matter, in a bluegrass com­bo — a fun melody is a fun melody in any genre). But this is certainly not enough to stop the heart from sulking in a relentlessly thumbs down mode, or the brain from wondering just what exactly was it in the Eighties that made so many talented people go so utterly crazy you'd think the first of the Four Horsemen was upon us already — maybe playing drums in one of those L.A. hair bands, as a warm-up.

Accept: Russian Roulette

ACCEPT: RUSSIAN ROULETTE (1986)

1) T.V. War; 2) Monsterman; 3) Russian Roulette; 4) It's Hard To Find A Way; 5) Aiming High; 6) Heaven Is Hell; 7) Another Second To Be; 8) Walking In The Shadow; 9) Man Enough To Cry; 10) Stand Tight.

One picture that can be constructed around the recording of this album is that it is darker and less compromising than Metal Heart, going easier on simple hooks and heavier on grim atmosphere, and that this reflected the creative struggle between grittier front man Dirkschneider and more flexible lead guitarist Wolf Hoffmann, a struggle in which, for this round, Udo had the upper hand but which eventually led to his departure from the band that Hoffmann would be free to lead to complete disaster.

At least this is what you get from reading the yellow press on the Internet; the real picture... well, you know. Russian Roulette is certainly a departure from Metal Heart, but in more ways than one, and both good and bad ways. The good news is that they start varying the approach a bit; that nasty nagging feeling that you're listening to a pre-programmed algorithmic artefact, where all the songs are modeled on the same formula, is gone. There is more diversity to the moods and tempos, and even a return to "epic" form (title track; 'Heaven Is Hell'). The bad news, alas, is that not all of this works, and that the band begins to sound tired and out of steam.

You know they're tired and out of steam when the first song of the album begins in the style and tempo of 'Fast As A Shark' — but forgets to pack an equally convincing and memorable riff, and ends up sounding like respectable, but still generic trash, elevated to this status of "respectable" more through a purely psychological understanding that this is still Hoffmann on the guitar on Udo on vocals, and there's no escape from their onslaught.

You know this even better once you understand that the convincing and memorable riff of the second song ('Monsterman') is actually lifted directly from Judas Priest's 'You Got Another Thing Coming' — intentionally or subconsciously, doesn't matter. And this is also where you could start getting the uneasy feeling that, first time in years, it is the gruff chorus chanting that interacts with Udo's solo wailing which is the major thing to get stuck in your head. 'I am the monsterman!' on 'Monsterman'. 'WAR GAMES! SHANGHAI'D!' on the title track. 'HEAVEN IS THERE WHERE HELL IS — AND HELL IS DOWN ON EARTH!' 'WALKING IN THE SHADOW, WALKING IN THE NIGHT!' All of a sudden, it's not that hard to understand the rest of the band might have developed the suspicion that they could go on getting by without Udo's help.

None of this should be disconcerting per se. 'Heaven Is Hell' is a glorious epic along the lines of 'Balls To The Wall' (but certainly not a rewrite of it, as some detractors have suggested) that de­serves eternal recognition in the metal canon. The sense of doom and gloom on 'Russian Roulette' arguably echoes the sense of doom hanging over the band itself, and is fully realistic, for that mat­­ter. Some of the shorter songs, like 'Aiming High', also reach their mark through the usual combination of grittiness and catchiness.

Yet they also recline back into the cesspool of arena rock — 'It's Hard To Find A Way', 'Man Enough To Cry', and the closing anthem 'Stand Tight' are, by all means, not the kind of songs that this band should be writing. Maybe it's the Hoffmann stamp, maybe not, but these are songs for the likes of Foreigner, not the Udo-led combo that, at their best, either avoided sentimentality or found subtler cloaks for it than power chords and passionate choral vocals. Looking back at the calendar, it's nothing short of amazing that it was 1986 — as far as I'm concerned, one of the worst years in history for popular music — and they still managed to get only two or three of those, but this realization doesn't make them any more listenable on their own.

So the crisis here is obvious, but "crisis" needn't necessarily be a horrendous thing — in times of crisis, you can start wildly fluttering around your cage, trying out every direction, and end up hitting upon a few gaps in the bars (as well as a few particularly rough spots). There is still that element of fascination in Russian Roulette, with its mixture of pompous failures and equally pompous hits, that prevents it from being the kind of blemish on Accept's reputation that their next album would turn out to be. The brain is, therefore, intrigued, and the heart gripped by mixed emotions, and I can't give this either a positive or a negative rating, but I do recommend hearing this at least once, because sometimes "confused" heavy metal albums give more food for both the heart and the brain than perfectly self-assured ones.

Accept: Staying A Life

ACCEPT: STAYING A LIFE (1990/1985)

1) Metal Heart; 2) Breaker; 3) Screaming For A Love-Bite; 4) Up To The Limit; 5) Living For Tonite; 6) Princess Of The Dawn; 7) Guitar Solo; 8) Restless And Wild; 9) Son Of A Bitch; 10) London Leatherboys; 11) Love Child; 12) Flash Rockin' Man; 13) Dogs On Leads; 14) Fast As A Shark; 15) Balls To The Wall.

A slightly belated live album, recorded in Japan on the Metal Heart tour — although the belated­ness may have ultimately done the band a favour; since it was released almost at the same time as their wretched Udo-less dwarf of a studio effort, Eat The Heat, the world, and the band itself, were reminded of their former glory and splendor, and possibly contributed towards the success­ful reunion with Udo. (Empty, but realistic, speculation).

Anyway, Accept are one of those bands that have no serious need for a live album: it is hardly within human capacity to make their live show even more "restless and wild" than what they give out in the studio. You cannot play 'Fast As A Shark' faster than a shark, and if one of their songs on Metal Heart flashed the title 'Up To The Limit', you may be sure that so it was, and the limit is the limit. The primary meaning of a hard rock live album is that it cranks up the level of head­banging, usually at the expense of polish and "cleanness" of sound; but what good is a live album if it still sacrifices a bit of polish, but is unable to crank up the headbanging?

Well, except for the bare fact that any Accept recording in Accept's prime is worth listening to as such, Staying A Life has a few major and minor advantages. First, it functions well as a "best of" package — somewhat uncomfortably tilted towards Metal Heart, the weakest of their "immacu­late stretch" of records, but still touching on most of the major highlights of Breaker, Restless And Wild, and Balls To The Wall. Second, it'll be a special delight for Wolf Hoffmann fans, since the guy generally gets more time to stretch out (there is even a special four and a half mi­nute solo which, in a nice nod to the psychedelic tastes of the Sixties, incorporates the theme from 'Hall Of The Mountain King'). Third, 'Princess Of The Dawn' does not get cut off, but is played well to its logical end (some might prefer the odd studio ending, though).

Fourth, it is worth owning this recording if only for the small bit of audience participating at the beginning of 'Fast As A Shark', when Udo leads the crowd in a series of call-and-response vocals. Each "call" is longer and more complex than the previous one, but the Japanese crowd does not yield — doing its best to collectively emulate his war cries. Then he comes up with a particularly impressive ascending line, which no single living human being can emulate. The audience, how­ever, gives it their best, and is almost able to match it. But just as the people — I think — start sighing in relief, believing they were finally able to catch up with Udo at his most complex...

Oh well, looks like this review is getting too long anyway. The album obviously gets a thumbs up, but so would probably just about every Accept show from 1982 to 1986. The recommenda­tion, however, is not to use it as a greatest hits-type shortcut, because that way you will be mis­sing out on 'Burning', 'Starlight', 'Ahead Of The Pack', and lots of other classics. [Note: the album can also be found in a somewhat more rare, 2-CD, edition, which does have 'Burning' — exten­ded beyond need and inferior to the original — as well as a couple other songs.]

Accept: Metal Heart

ACCEPT: METAL HEART (1985)

1) Metal Heart; 2) Midnight Mover; 3) Up To The Limit; 4) Wrong Is Right; 5) Screaming For A Love-Bite; 6) Too High To Get It Right; 7) Dogs On Leads; 8) Teach Us To Survive; 9) Living For Tonite; 10) Bound To Fail.

The followup to the big commercial breakthrough, Metal Heart, like most similar followups, offers no surprises. But under the circumstances, they could have done much worse — for in­stance, intoxicated by the fumes of the power and the glory and the big bucks, turn into a cartoo­nish hair metal band. Instead, there is no sign of compromise. It is sometimes suggested that they did make Metal Heart slightly "poppier", adding more catchy chorus hooks for the public to go along, but I don't see it in the least — not that these chorus hooks aren't catchy, but having the audience easily singing along to their choruses had always been Accept's priority.

Just like on Balls, the most ambitious track on the album is the title one that opens it. Unfortuna­tely, this time around they haven't been able to come up with a bunch of riffs for it that would knock the pants off you in the same effective way. But they still find an alternative way to draw you in — by incorporating symphonic influences, quoting Tchaikovsky in the intro and Beet­hoven in the guitar solo. "Symph-metal" can be awful in the wrong hands, but if you get your classical quotations right, arranging them so that the power of the original melody is smoothly stretched alongside the power of heavy metal guitar, the effect can be awe-inspiring, and Wolf Hoffmann channelling the spirit of Beethoven turns out to be a majestic embellishment of 'Metal Heart' rather than a ridiculous embarrassment.

On the rest of the tracks, it may be said that the band is "coasting": the riffs are still loud and po­werful, but generally simpler and more derivative of former glories than they used to be. Some are even suspiciously reminiscent of similar power-chord driven AC/DC stuff — not a good thing, because the riff-playing skills of Accept are, from a technical point of view, more sophisticated than those of AC/DC, and that's the way Accept fans would probably have liked them to stay. And this, for the first time in a long stretch, makes one experience the old nasty feeling of 'for­mula': one high-adrenaline level rocker after another, buildup, bombastic chorus, kick-ass guitar solo, lead-out section, buildup again, bombastic chorus again etc. — you don't so much feel these things when the songs are awesome, but if they're just one small notch below awesome, the atmo­sphere changes radically.

Still, what am I saying? — 'Up To The Limit', 'Wrong Is Right', 'Too High To Get It Right', 'Dogs On Leads', these are all first-rate metal stalwarts, each and every one a headbanger's dream. 'Up To The Limit', in particular, is the number two Accept song to help you vent your frustration — it doesn't have the great chords of 'Balls To The Wall', but, in partial compensation, it's got the speed and the fury to match. And 'Screaming For A Lovebite' and 'Living For Tonite' are as great for party-hellraising as anything this band ever did.

Therefore, Metal Heart's main weakness is that it gives a bad premonition — a premonition that the end might be near, that the band already has some trouble sustaining the same high quality level. But if you don't believe in premonitions — and if you're 'living for tonite', why should you? — then Metal Heart has got no serious weaknesses whatsoever, and, no matter how much one's brain might complain about the band turning into AC/DC and losing its identity, the heart just keeps going along with the thunder. Thumbs up, no doubt about it.

Accept: Balls To The Wall

ACCEPT: BALLS TO THE WALL (1983)

1) Balls To The Wall; 2) London Leatherboys; 3) Fight It Back; 4) Head Over Heels; 5) Losing More Than You've Ever Had; 6) Love Child; 7) Turn Me On; 8) Losers And Winners; 9) Guardian Of The Night; 10) Winter Dreams.

Nothing beats Restless And Wild, but one cannot spend all one's life listening to Restless And Wild. When you've learnt it by heart, try Balls To The Wall. Having now studied the essence of their talents and having reached the peak of their creativity, Accept just continue, without see­ming effort, to crank out not particularly imaginative, but solid, explosive metal tunes — one after the other, they just go off like a series of splendid, if samey, firecrackers.

Balls To The Wall, on average, is somewhat slower, denser, and darker than its predecessor. After 'Fast As A Shark', Accept have all but renounced breakneck thrash tempos; only 'Fight It Back' and 'Losers And Winners' (the latter's riff is superficially based on Black Sabbath's 'Symp­tom Of The Universe') fit the bill, but even these fall beyond their previous speed records. Appa­rently, they'd simply taken the speed thing as far as they could take it, and were now happy with concentrating more on the melody aspect.

So, in sharp contrast to 'Fast As A Shark' and 'Starlight', the album begins with a really slow song. But oh my God, what a song. It took real balls — pardon the pun — for Accept to begin their new record with (and this is my firm conviction) the best ever opening riff in a heavy metal song, only to retire it several bars into the song and never ever show it up again. It is the perfect opening. An opening that makes even non-metalheads pay attention. A riff that, perhaps, only a Teutonic metal guitarist could be capable of.

Still, now that I think of it, that riff belongs in the intro — I don't see it easily reappearing any­where else, nor can I imagine Udo singing over it. And besides, the song itself easily lives up to its opening. The revolutionary lyrics — the same old subject of the oppressed masses rising up and breaking their chains — are trite, but they're basically just a pretext for showing how mighty pissed-off Udo and the gang can be. Accept aren't revolutionaries, they're rock stars, and I have no idea just how much they care for the working class, but one thing I do know: few, if any, things let you vent your frustration better than singing along to '...they're coming to get you and then — you'll get your BALLS TO THE WALL, MAN!' After all, this is so much more humanis­tic and time-saving than actually strangling your boss when you feel like it, right?

Previous Accept albums were relatively even in terms of quality; here, nothing even comes close to matching the sheer motivated power of the title track — one reason why I always get a little annoyed with the album. At the same time, just like on Restless, there is not a single stinker: just more and more catchy metal riffs and choruses. American critics and listeners have often reacted strongly to what they perceive as a 'gay thread' running through the album — starting from the hairy leg on the album cover and ending with 'London Leatherboys' (actually a song about bikers rather than gays) and 'Love Child'; but then, it's the same American critics and listeners for whom the issue of Hamlet sleeping with Horatio overshadows "to be or not to be", so there's no need whatsoever to perceive Balls To The Wall as a specifically 'gay metal' record — it just toys with the subject on one track (and why shouldn't it?).

Odd as it may seem, my second favourite track is the album closer, 'Winter Dreams'. After nine rounds of explosives, they round out the proceedings with a ballad — but not a power ballad, rather a dark, brooding ballad where Udo sings in his world-weary voice, very appropriate in this place, as if tired and exhausted from giving it his all on the previous nine numbers. With its minor acoustic chords, church bells, and deep, echoing riffs, you once more (as you did on 'Princess Of The Dawn') get a medievalistic/D&D atmosphere, but this time combined with a very realistic sense of melancholia and futility of being. Nine balls of fire — and a cold shower at the door.

Balls To The Wall begins Accept's slow descent into mediocrity — but begins it barely a few feet down from the peak, so that you can only get such an impression from a later, general per­spe­ctive on their career. As it is, it would merit an unbiased thumbs up for the title track alone — even forgetting the fact that a lesser band would just as likely kill for any of the rest.