Just as heavy metal is making a comeback, one band is saying
\ntheir farewells… again.<\/p>\n
Accept was one of, if not
\nthe<\/i>, name in German heavy metal in the ’80s. Led by the
\nhoarse balls-on-barbed-wire shouts of Udo Dirkschneider, Accept
\nslowly wormed their way into the hearts of metal fans with songs
\nlike “Metal Heart,” “Balls To The Wall” and “Midnight Mover”. But
\nas the band started moving towards more melody-driven music,
\nDirkschneider abandoned ship and started his own band, which failed
\nto go anywhere. Accept’s fortunes, meanwhile, got worse, and the
\nband threw in the towel in 1989, only to reunite a few years later
\n(and eventually reteam with Dirkschneider).<\/p>\n
But for reasons unknown to me (translation: couldn’t find any
\nreason on the fan sites I could access), Accept has finally decided
\nthat enough is enough, and have chosen to go out with a double live
\nalbum for the fans,
\nThe Final Chapter<\/i>. For a live album, this is good, but there
\nare times that one wonders what all the hype was about.<\/p>\n
There’s no debating the talents of guitarist Wolf Hoffmann,
\nthough I’d question if it was necessary for him to throw in
\nclassical lines as lead breaks (at one point, he pulls out
\nBeethoven’s “Fur Elise”… which the crowd actually
\nsings<\/i> to!). Bassist Peter Baltes gets his chance to strut
\nhis stuff, but for the most part seems perfectly happy providing a
\nsolid backbeat for the band. Drum chores are split on this disc
\nbetween Stefan Kaufmann and Stefan Schwarzmann.<\/p>\n
And then there is Dirkschneider. There are times that his vocals
\nare more like nails on a blackboard than real vocals – whatever did
\npeople hear in his performances? Be that as it may, his shrill
\ntones are what made Accept, and it’s only fitting that he be their
\nvocalist as the final gun sounds.<\/p>\n
The track selection on
\nThe Final Chapter<\/i> truly indicates this is a present to the
\nfans, selecting cuts from the band’s whole career. The better-known
\nsongs are here (“Balls To The Wall,” “Metal Heart,” “London
\nLeatherboys”), but for a fan who occasionally dabbled in their
\nmusic, there are many other tracks which will tickle their taste
\nbuds as well. “I Don’t Wannt Be Like You,” “Bulletproof,” “Stone
\nEvil” and “Slaves To Metal” all are high points of this disc.<\/p>\n
But there are times when it seems like the band is grapsing at
\nstraws. “Princess Of The Dawn” might have been popular judging from
\nthe crowd’s response to it, but the track doesn’t come over well in
\nthe translation from live show to compact disc. (Memo to my friends
\nat CMC International: Are the words “home video” possibly in the
\nworks?) “Son Of A Bitch” is a weak throwback to the mid-’80s, when
\nhard rock and heavy metal were challenged by the PMRC. I’m not
\nsaying this was a response to the PMRC, but if it was, it was
\nhardly worth pumping out.<\/p>\n
And there are times when this set seems to drag on endlessly –
\nby the time you get to the final track “Death Row,” chances are you
\nmight have lost some interest by then. Maybe if some of the
\ninstrumental noodling had been cut out of some of the tracks, it
\nwould have been more bearable. (Let’s also thank Jah we weren’t
\nsubjected to the dreaded “drum solo” track.)<\/p>\n
The question has to be asked: Why now is Accept calling it
\nquits? My guess (and it’s just a guess): after almost 20 years,
\nthey might have run out of creative steam, and wanted to go out of
\nthe game without turning themselves into a caricature of who they
\nused to be.<\/p>\n
There still are legions of Accept fans out there; for those
\npeople,
\nThe Final Chapter<\/i> will be a must-own disc. For the rest of
\nus, it’s an interesting (if not a bit overindulgent) product to
\nlisten to, and has many flashbacks of this band’s glory days. But
\nit’s better taken in small doses – one disc per sitting,
\nperhaps.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":24702,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[],"artist":[5941],"rating":[5612],"class_list":["post-35906","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-accept","rating-rating-b-minus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/35906","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35906"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/35906\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/24702"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35906"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35906"},{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=35906"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=35906"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}