AFM
2009
Probably the first time I heard Accept was probably well over 25 years ago when I heard "Fast as a shark" on a late night metal radio show. The first thing that hit was the speed of the song as I not heard anything that fast at the time. The next thing that hit was me was Udo Dirkschneider's voice. Honestly wasn't too sure of what to make of it because I had certainly never heard anything like this growl before. Indeed his voice grew on me over the next few years as I became an Accept fan. I was sad to see him part from the band, but have followed his solo career on and off over the years. The music on Dominator is nothing new or unexpected as it's mostly medium fast and not a whole different from what Udo (the singer) has tackled in the past. However it's not all just stuck in the past because the music is certainly polished enough to come across as being fairly fresh. Now the real focus is of course the vocals and it's easy to tell that Udo's voice has aged quite well. He has retained his distinctivly rough, gravel type voice and he still knows how to wield it as well. This is classic style metal about as good as it can be played. The go straight ahead and the lyrics are pretty much the same old things, but they hit at with a great deal of steam and determination. Sometimes it's alright to be predictable if what you are playing is this good. "Dominator" certainly manages to be one of the better real metal albums of 2009.
nice post. I just peeped some of that UDO on You Tube and I must confess that I certainly agree with you 100%.
ReplyDeleteBeing a huge ACCEPT fan starting from: 1982's "Restless and Wild", which is/was awesome from start to finish. Highlights being the title cut, the epic "princess of the dawn" and of course the KILLER "Fast as a Shark".
I cut my teeth on that song (and MOTLEY CRUE's "Red Hot)learning to play drums and ultimately FAST double-bass songs.
Up next: 1983's "Balls to the Wall" - their all time metal classic and I think this is their best and they will never TOP THIS IMO.
AND LASTLY, 1985's "Metal Heart", which was decent but not as great as the previous two.
After that, they just slid into oblivion.
UDO tried to carry the torch and released a handful of decent tracks on some decent albums over the years but never quite managed to put-together another band that could match ACCEPT's magic/chemistry.
Fast-forward to 2009-2010 and UDO has somehow managed to change all of that and had released a fine album. Ground-breaking, of course not, but this is solid like you said and his voice is on-point with this style.
His lyrics and the way he phrases them is very catchy and UDO! ...and those BG vocals = massive/ and the "catchy" choruses rule for commercial metal music.
Let's see what the ACCEPT boyz are able to come up with + their "new" singer (ex-T.T. Quick), could be interesting - let's see when it arrives.
do an album cover shootout then bro!
Rock On!
Curt King
Demolish Metal Mag.
http://demolishmag.wordpress.com/