Year: 2021
Total Time: 52:16
Label: Nuclear Blast
There are some guys in our scene that despite any obstacles that show on their way they never give up. And that’s the right thing to do if you want my opinion when they still have a few more things to say and keep the metal flag up on the air, there is no reason for an early retirement. This is exactly the thing with those “German AC/DC” fellows as some people have called them in the past, the leaders of classic, European, “teutonic” heavy metal, the highly beloved ACCEPT who now release their 16th studio album.
The last couple of years they suffered from 2 significant blows when 2 out of 3 original remaining members left, the bass player Peter Baltes and the axeman Frank Herman cause as it seems, the not so successful 2017 album “The Rise Of Chaos” has caused some serious frictions in the band. So the guitar hero Wolf Hoffman together with the singer Mark Tornillo thought they should follow the steps of IRON MAIDEN and make the band a 6 piece with 3 guitarists from now on. If something like that makes any sense, we’ll better find out when we see them on stage, since as we all know, in the studio it’s not that important.
In the real essence f the album now, at first for me the cover is pretty bad, much inferior to the previous ones and does not really fit the history of the band. But this is the least of our problems. Musically, the opening track “Zombie Apocalypse” after a small “let’s tune and start” style intro the classic ACCEPT sounds spreads everywhere from the speakers. With “Too Mean To Die” we get some more speed and “Overnight Sensation” continues solid and metallic. The next opus is “No Ones Master”, the best track in here yet, with great guitars, speed and feeling, being helped by the chorus “I am no one’s master, no one’s slave”. Things are getting tougher after that when the subterranean tune “The Undertaker” starts, the 2nd single of the album, a nice groovy and dark anthem, one more great moment in here. The next few moments are taken by the unavoidable “pozerish” tune “Sucks To Be You” which is not bad but as we, the old ones used to say back in the days, it is one of their “dance songs”. After those happy moments, here comes what it seems to be the highlight of the album, the song that will get people go crazy in the lives, called “Symphony Of Pain” where all three guitarists will give it all, even some Beethoven tunes are played in there. After that, it’s time to calm down a little bit with a classic metal ballad emerged straight from the glory old days with the much promising title “The Best Is Yet To Come”. Here, I predict that lots of mobile phones will light in the concerts since lighters are becoming pretty rare now in close spaces. “How Do We Sleep” that comes next is suitable for some questioning since both ACCEPT and us, are wondering “How do we sleep at night? With the world around us going to hell”. This is a pretty good question that I don’t think will ever be answered. On the other side of that question we get the pretty nice “Not My Problem” before the album comes to its end with the impressive instrumental track “Samson And Delilah” where all three axemen are riffing and going solo nonstop for 4 and a half minutes and Middle East tuning in order to give life to this famous story without words. A very nice way to end this album indeed.
So, in order to sum up, the new ACCEPT album, surely does not rediscover the wheel, they have already done that in the past many times with total success and it cannot be done again. However, it is a record that you can listen to pleasantly many times, it does sound ACCEPT in our ears, with very good freshened up guitars, Mark’s vocals are still on high levels not matter his 66 years of age and synthetically they sound refreshed, obviously because of the two new additions to the lineup. There are more than a few nice songs, I cannot tell if some of them will remain classic ones but it is better than the previous album and in the end, I don’t think we want something more from them, just see them again on stage, grab a few beers and have a great time like so many times in the past.
Rating: 7.5/10
Editor: Antonis Livanios
Related Link: ACCEPT – Official Page
