Yet another installment in Sony Music's "Metal Masters" series, it's good to see them reissuing an album that really does not fit the profile of your typical major label cash cow roster.
Accept was one of the very first underground Metal bands to receive huge commercial success in the United States in the 1980's, not to mention the one of the first to be signed by a major label.
Accept had gotten their feet wet in the US with an abundance of underground radio airplay, stamping out albums like "Midnight Highway," and their self titled release; all selling a very good amount regardless of the these records being hard to find and usually only being available as imports at the time.
But what differentiated
Accept from many other Metal bands at the time was that their image was the same yet different, you had a band full of typical longhaired metal guys fronted by a hefty frontman who we all know as Udo (Dirkschneider), who had short hair, and looked more like a military Drill Sergeant rather than one of Metal's most notable frontman. But the sound was not too far fetched to what any Metalhead back in the day would expect. I mean although they were a German band, they seemed to fit in well with the whole NWBHM sound, they captured the whole gritty New York Metal sound, while embracing the beginnings to the whole European Power Metal sound, striking a chord with everyone, aligning their sound with the like of
Iron Maiden and Judas Priest.
First up, the album itself is filled with Udo's ripping vocals which are a cross between Bon Scott and Saxon's Biff Byford, but being yet more grainy, brought forth will full blown emotion. The fretwork of both Hermann Frank and
Wolf Hoffman, whose styles play out ranging from simplistic bar chord riffs to precision filled technical arpeggios, giving perfect balance to
Accept's overall sound. You might think that the title cut would be a little risqué for many American radio stations at the time, well it was, but with an overload of requests, and the album's sales reaching beyond modest sales with very little airplay, radio had no choice but to air this "tongue-in-cheek" political anthem, causing it this cut to receive huge airplay on college radio as well as regular rotation on MTV. The title cut remains an anthem; I mean listen to the powerful chorus, you can't deny it.
But the album's stature does not end there, no, no, no, it just begins; with heavy centered cuts like
"Fight it Back," "Turn Me On," and
"Losers and Winners" providing the powerful anthem structure for the record, keeping the stature of their raw earlier work present. Its cuts like
"Losing More Than You Ever Had," " Winterdreams," and
"Guardians of the Night" which is a more eased back dark songs, border-lining on ballad structure, prove that the pace was set for many Metal bands to come. The song structure on this record keeps a balance between eased back darker key cuts and full-blown Metal opuses, keeping this record as diverse as any record out there. The live tracks, of course, showcase the bands prominence as live band.
For years this album was available on CD as a "two-for," in America also containing "Restless and Wild" along with this record (although available separately on LP and Cassette), which the two go together perfectly, in fact that is how many American fans who remember these two albums, back to back. Nowadays with rights being swapped around and so forth, the albums are available separately (not good for the pennywise). "Restless and Wild" along with the rest of their catalog is available on Breaker/Nuclear Blast, with remastered sound and digipak packaging, but lack the bonus tracks, oh well we can't have everything, but the music is there and always will be. This is defiantly a record that is to be reckoned with, and remains to this day, one of the most powerful and influential albums with one of the most recognizable Metal anthems. I will add that a few years ago I was playing this CD in a used record store that I worked at and I had the title cut cranked up, and you could see these conservative people looking around with a shocked look on their face, but I had to stop playing it due to the fact that someone wanted to buy it (and that is the only reason I stopped playing it), just goes to show Metal Rules!
Written by
Hashman Wednesday, September 3, 2003
Show all reviews by HashmanRatingsHashman: 9/10Members: 7.75/10 - Average of 2 ratings.
Member ratings
 | Steen (Staff)
Rating: 7.5/10
A classic which sounds occasionally dated but holds up remarkably well. Udo's powerful cro... · Read more · |
 | notrap
Rating: 8/10
I bought the Remastered version this mouth.
Highlights:
Love Child - in my opinion the... · Read more · |
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