Unknown Soldier

The Lowdown
There were three essential albums from Accept in this their key commercial period and these albums were Restless and Wild with its thrashy overtones, Balls to the Wall one of the most bombastic metal releases of its time and Metal Heart which would be a toned down version of the previous releases. Metal Heart was probably the least of these albums in terms of the impact of its material and in any other year probably would’ve finished well outside the top 10, but as said on previous reviews 1985 was certainly weaker than preceding years. Accept were an archetypal metal band from this period, proudly roaring down the centric metal highway with thrash or hair metal bands occupying the gound either side of them, but also having enough in their locker to appeal to either camp. Metal Heart would be the last album with pint-sized vocalist Udo Dirkschneider until his return in the 1990s and his departure from the band saw their fortunes as a commercial metal giant quickly start to subside, showing that Accept’s relationship with the higher echelons of the metal world to be a very tenuous indeed. The album was produced by Dieter Dierks who had produced all those classic Scorpion albums, as the band issued out another album designed to appeal to a North American audience. Its name Metal Heart is also not exactly a world away from Quiet Riot’s monster metal seller Metal Health from a few years earlier, so in my mind there is a definite commercial link working away there in terms of the album title similarity. A number of the songs on the album contain catchy choruses and melodies to add to the band’s already trademark blazing twin-guitar sound and to be honest the fist-pumping metal of earlier releases has been severly toned down here. The songs on the album that personify this newer approach come in the shape of the catchy “Midnight Mover” which was the first single from the album. “Screaming for a Love Bite” sounds exactly like the type of melodic track that the band were looking for here and unsurprisingly was another single. Straight forward metal sounding material comes in the shape of the AC/DC sounding “Up to the Limit” the guitar driven “Wrong is Right” both are rather repitive efforts but do drive the album forward. “Living for Tonite” seems to lift its main rift right out of the Scorpion’s school of thought but is still a solid heavy track. One of the best tracks is the delightfully titled “Too High to Get it Right” which really would’ve gone down a treat on the Balls to the Wall album and the same can be said for “Dogs on a Lead” another one of the best here and both sound like vintage Accept in hindsight. Some diversity though is on offer in the shape of the album’s title track “Metal Heart” which uses two famous classical themes at the beginning and its middle, and the song really does have some distinctive European power metal overtones as well. “Teach Us to Survive” has the odd use of jazz applied to it in places and I think it works really real and Udo also gives us a very brief impersonation of one of Ian Gillan’s jokey sounding vocals as well. Despite the watering down of the band’s sound for even greater commercial accessibility, the vocals of Udo Dirkschneider sound as potent and gruff as always and for this reason will keep Accept fans happy. Metal Heart wasn’t well received at the time, but as said earlier it’s one of the band’s better efforts and certainly superior to some of the albums that followed it. The album has a couple of almost euro-pop vibe sections sewn into some of its catchier songs, which I’m certain would be a detraction for some of its listeners. In terms of sales it wouldn’t be anywhere as near as successful as Balls to the Wall, despite the band attempting an even more streamlined sound, in fact the band themselves seemed to predict this in their ominous album closer "Bound to Fail". Some of the tracks from Metal Heart would also appear on the band’s live EP Kaizoku-Ban which came out later the same year.

Udo Dirkschneider- Vocals
Wolff Hoffman- Guitar
Hermann Frank- Guitar
Peter Baltes- Bass
Stefan Kaufman- Drums

Production- Dieter Dierks

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