Blind rage --- Accept --- 2014 (Nuclear Blast)
Say it loud, say it proud: I have always been a fan of Accept. I mean never. Never been a fan of Accept. To be fair, I've heard little from them, other than their supposedly seminal album “Balls to the wall”, which I heard at the height of a particularly nasty houseparty next door as I was trying to sleep, so as you can imagine that album did not exactly leave a great impression upon me. But Accept are accepted (sorry) as one of the premier German heavy metal bands and although I initially had intended to include this as part of the German section of “The International Language of Metal”, I made a decision not to feature any current albums there. However I had already reviewed this before I made that decision, so no sense in all that work going to waste, is there?
It opens on “Stampede”, with an almost operatic, dramatic intro before the twin guitars of Herman Frank and Wolf Hoffman blast in. This is the third outing for new vocalist Mark Tornillo, and though I didn't particularly like Udo Dirkschneider (what I heard of him), his voice was a little easier to accept (sorry, again) than this new guy. Tornillo seems to come from the school of Death Metal, and he growls and spits out the lyrics without, to me, as much emotion or passion as old Udo. It's a decent opening, powerful and striking though perhaps a little slower than I might have expected with a title like that, and the axework of Hoffman and Frank can't be understated. Still, so far at least they've failed to win me over, but this is after all only track one, and there are ten more to go.
“Dying breed” is up next, and it's more a chugalong rocker, with elements of Sabbath and Maiden at their best; even Tornillo's voice is a little easier to (no, I'm not going to say it again) take this time out, and with some very goth metal style backing vocals it's a decent song, far better than “Stampede”. Again the boys shine on guitar, while Stefan Schwarzmann hammers out the beat and his partner-in-rhythm, Peter Baltes, keeps pace. Yeah, this is much better, but will it be maintained throughout the album I wonder? In terms of value for money “Blind rage” is not bad, with eleven tracks in all, none of which dip below the four minute mark and one or two that edge over six minutes. I don't think there are any instrumentals: I get the feeling Accept don't do instrumentals.
“Dark side of my heart” is in fact one of the shorter ones, just about making it past the four and a half minute mark, and has a certain element of AOR about it, with a great beat and again fine backing vocals. It's kind of mid-paced, rocking but not thrashing and though some people will no doubt headbang to it, I expect there are faster, more headbangworthy songs on this album. A grinder, a cruncher, call it what you will, the next one up is much slower and pounding, kind of reminds me in ways of Sabbath's “Heaven and Hell” or Dio's “Egypt (The chains are on)”. This one comes in on the longer side of things, throwing in some sort of Viking/Goth influences over its almost six-minute run, and “Fall of the empire” has a really great little hook in its chorus. I must say, after what I considered to be a lacklustre opening this album is really shaping up. No bad tracks yet, that one excepted. I said
“excepted”!
Nice political/topical lyric in
”Will the mountains crumble to the ground?/Will the Earth stand still?/Will we rise into a mushroom cloud?/Will the mountains crumble?” (Okay, perhaps not the most imaginative of lines, but it surely beats singing about beer, women and fighting?) which does at least show that Accept are thinking about world issues, and I would venture to predict that “Trail of tears” looks at the plight of the North American Indian? Well, it kicks the tempo right back up, that's for sure, as Schwarzmann unleashes his powerful drumbeats, and yes, it's Accept's “Run to the hills”, though perhaps that's not fair: I'm sure many metal bands have written about the disenfranchisement of the Native Americans. But that's the song that comes to mind when I think of the near-eradication of the red man from America. It's a good song, with some fine soloing from Herr Frank and Herr Hoffman, taking us into “Wanna be free”, with a nice little acoustic guitar intro raising the possibility that this may be a ballad.
It picks up in power fairly quickly but generally stays slow, and seems to reference the global cancer of white slavery --- well it does obviously, as the chorus has Tornillo roar
”No more human trafficking!” So that's that sorted then. Fair play to them: a great cause to champion, and it's a really good song too, with again another killer hook. I can just see the audience pumping studded fists in the air as they all yell
”We all wanna be free!” Well, don't we? Seems Accept have tapped into something of a zeitgeist here. Although in fairness it's only the first verse that talks of white slavery, as they they go on to focus on other wrongs such as poverty and homelessness and addiction. And yes, I'm getting more used to Tornillo's voice now, kind of a harsher Axl Rose. Sort of. At least he doesn't scream like Udo did. Well, not yet anyway. Though he does just then go back to that growl he had at the beginning for “200 years”; it's not so bad now. Rocks along nicely, this track with a cool line
”Welcome to the Stone Age/ 200 years after Mankind!” clearly referring back to the lyrical content of “Fall of the empire”. Well, it seems the empire has fallen, and with the passing of Man (
”Population zero!”) and all his technology the Earth has reverted to an earlier, more natural state.
I hear echoes of Bowie in here, and Queen, and Balance of Power too. “Bloodbath mastermind” has a really sweet, echoey guitar to open it then a rolling beat from Schwarzmann kicks it all up to ten as the riffs start churning out and Tornillo lets out a few screams, but I don't mind. This is good stuff, though to be honest after the other tracks this is a little below par for me. Not saying it's a bad track, just not as good as any of the six that have preceded it. Tornillo goes into a very Axl/Brett growl for “From the ashes we rise”, another mid-paced rocker with some almost Kansas-style vocal harmonies. One thing this band seems to excel at is writing songs with catchy hooks, which is where the previous one fell down: there wasn't one. Here there is, and it adds an extra layer to an already pretty tasty song. The backing vocals are, again, very effective.
The longest track on the album at just a second short of six and a half minutes, “The curse” starts slowly, with some nice chimy guitar and a sort of tribal drumbeat, almost shades of Peter Gabriel's “Biko” in the guitar riff, then it's another philosophical track with lines like
”Who's the thief, who's the traitor?/ Who's the one who saved the day?/Who will stand in the spotlight/ While the good ones fade away?” Mid-paced again, a grinder and again with elements of AOR or certainly melodic metal in it, this is another winner on an album that has very few bad tracks at all. A really fine solo from one or the other of the guys --- don't ask me which --- and again that killer hook is in evidence, something that's not always the case with metal bands, especially German ones, where often how fast or hard you play seems to be more important than how you craft a song. We storm out in fine style then with “Final journey”, and on the strength of this album I think that's definitely not a prediction, or a threat. Accept prove they have culture too as the guitar solo rewrites Grieg's classical masterpiece “Morning” from “Peer Gynt.” Way to confuse the young 'uns, guys!
TRACKLISTING
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
So has this album made an Accept fan out of me? Well, I think it's difficult to make such a determination on the basis of one album, but one thing I can say about this is that I originally listened to it only for the purposes of review, but I've enjoyed it so much that I think I will be revisiting it purely for pleasure in the future. And that's not a bad start, is it?