Accept
Blood Of The Nations

We live in the twenty-first century, in the era of computers,  fashion, the era of mental haze due to television and Facebook, but above all, we live in the era of the "music" of Lady Gaga, Rihanna, and Black Eyed Peas. Hoping that some good young guy still makes some good heavy metal is now a utopia. All the die-hard fans of dear old HM seem destined to listen to the usual  epoch-defining albums of  historic seventies to nineties bands like, for example, Saxon rather than Dio or maybe Black Sabbath, all bands that seem to belong to an era that is now too distant to return.

Of course, it seems all is lost if we think about the releases of recent years; taking two  of the biggest names in the HM panorama as an example, we see that in 2010 Iron Maiden released "The Final Frontier," which is certainly not an album destined to remain in music history, actually… and in 2008 Judas Priest released "Nostradamus," a concept album that will be remembered mainly for the change in the band's typical sound, but certainly not as the pinnacle of heavy metal.

In short, I had almost resigned myself too until I found out that another historic band from those years was still around and in 2010 they released their latest album. I'm talking about the quintessential German heavy metal group, Accept, who decided to ride the wave again after 14 years of absence from the music scene. At this point, a spontaneous question arises: "how is it possible they recorded a new album after so long, having also lost him, the frontman par excellence, Udo Dirkschneider?"  With the same skepticism with which I listened to the first Judas album without Rob Halford, I approach the listening of this record and immediately realize that musically they are still as fierce as ever, and perhaps even more, but obviously I eagerly await the debut of the new singer Mark Tornillo who does not take long to arrive. Twenty seconds into the opening track “Beat the Bastards,” his voice kicks in, and I must tell the truth, I am immediately struck! Mark has a voice decidedly different from Udo's but not necessarily worse, indeed, despite my continued love and preference for the dear old "Teutonic gnome," it must be admitted that technically he is even superior. He engages in small melodic parts like  in a part of the song “The Abyss”  but also in breathtaking screams like those in “Blood of the Nations,”  when he screams  “Warrioooooooors on demand.” On guitars, there is the usual Wolf Hoffmann who performs "sledgehammer" riffs and fast and fierce solos, yet knowing how to handle softer melodies like in “Kill the Pain.” We see Herman Frank returning after many years of absence as the second guitarist. And on bass, we find the old acquaintance Peter Baltes, while instead, on drums, there is a change from Stefan Kaufmann to Schwarzmann.

The album flows in a very pleasant manner, giving us doses of pure adrenaline as traditionalist fans like it, and I say this because it is exactly the typical late eighties, early nineties album, with no innovation (and how could one bring innovation into HM in 2010 anyway) from a musical point of view, but that precisely makes this its strength, because it is simply an album of damn heavy metal without too much nonsense! If I had to find a flaw, I would say it is undoubtedly the length, as it well exceeds 60 minutes and indeed it’s due to a couple of fillers that might have been better left out, but overall, a couple of off-tone songs in an album of 12 tracks (excluding bonus tracks) I would say is not a big drama.

So, if it were their first album, I would have given without a doubt a 5, but considering that Accept are the same ones who have created masterpieces like “Balls to the Wall,” “Metal Heart,” and “Objection Overruled,” I give “only” 4.