Release date: 31.08.2018
Label: AFM Records
Production: Jacob Hansen
Rating: 9.0 / 10
Udo Dirkschneider hardly needs an introduction. Where did the last three years even go? So much has happened for the man known as the former lead throat of the mighty Accept and the eternally sworn leader of his own outfit U.D.O. The last U.D.O. album came out three years ago, and just this summer the legendary screamer was wrapping up his final shows at the summer festivals with his band U.D.O., but under the name Dirkschneider. On those tours, U.D.O., temporarily rebranded as Dirkschneider, played strictly Accept material. And in fresh interviews and statements from Udo Dirkschneider, it has finally leaked out officially that Udo and his two former Accept buddies (Hoffmann, Baltes) are seriously at odds, but that’s a different story.
Why such a fact-heavy intro? Because the fact that Accept’s and U.D.O.’s music is tightly connected hasn’t been a revelation that would knock our planet out of its orbit for a long time. Not just historically, but stylistically too. Whoever listens to Accept listens to U.D.O. (and vice versa). There’s no way around it if you’re a fan of old-school metal. But “Steelfactory”, which came out at the end of this August, pulls especially venomously on some of the guitar phrases from the more distinctive songs of Accept’s career. U.D.O. have really hit the reset button over the last three years. They certainly didn’t lack for looseness and fun during that run of shows under the Dirkschneider name. The energy lines in the band are distributed perfectly, so there was no shortage of ideas or creative chemistry later in the studio. Just take the new Make the Move: you quickly realize that not only the song title but the lead guitar phrase itself incredibly pulls on the riff of the Accept classic Living For Tonite. Playing Accept material after the Dirkschneider tours really did rub off on the later writing of the new U.D.O. music for “Steelfactory”. That’s a fact. Dig further into the album and you run into, for example, Rising High, which again, not just in the title but in the riff and the chorus melody, irrevocably summons the Accept riff of Aiming High. One Heart One Soul and Blood On Fire carry what are really identical lead guitar riffs. But while the first has a particularly bombastic chorus melody going forward, the second launches into a downright sinister pre-chorus and a dark continuation in which Udo’s trademark shriek wins completely!
Let me not go around in circles on one and the same thing for too long. The riffs you hear on “Steelfactory” can be called the best riffs Accept never recorded in the eighties. That’s how much compositional compatibility there is in the writing of both bands. But that’s a fact that has followed Udo’s solo career since the second half of the eighties, and there’s really no need to reinvent the wheel here. All the more so this time, because the three-year break was extremely welcome. It brings a whole bunch of excellent songs. While previous U.D.O. albums, released at too-short intervals, suffered in credibility from “less cleverly packaged recycling” of used riffs, “Steelfacotry” really has not a single weak spot, not one moment, and it “recycles” what’s already been said far more skillfully and cunningly than its studio predecessors. Above all, Udo and the crew show off their arranging skills in the mid-tempo numbers (A Bite Of Evil and In the Heat of the Night, both highlights of the album, and then Rose in the Desert before the end). Tucked at the tail end is a new excellent ballad, My Way, where Udo charms with his natural vocal tone. Otherwise, the man, who has wandered well into his mid-sixties, howls and screeches furiously. At undiminished power, and that’s the key thing that keeps the guy’s credibility firmly planted on the scene. Over the decades he hasn’t lost a speck of power in his voice. The raging slaps in the face are here too! The opening Tongue Reaper and Eraser near the end will chip your skull!
Udo and the crew are extremely experienced. On this album everything stands exactly as it should, including all the mid-eight passages and the fantastic soloing. The bass line digs and tears insatiably (Hungy And Angry) across the album, and Udo, as said, screams like a demon, a real animal. The album is played and recorded with incredible potency and boiling passion. That’s all the more fascinating given that Udo has an unbelievably long and fruitful career behind him and could easily announce his musical retirement. But with the zeal he’s showing and his compositional creativity, let’s hope he doesn’t come up with that idea for a long time. It’d be a sin.
An excellent new U.D.O. album, then! Just what it should be. More than that. Considering the original demands and expectations of the band, even better.
Heads up, fans: check out both special “limited” editions too, for the European and Japanese markets. The extra tracks are excellent as well. On the Japanese edition there’s a bonus track, What A Hell Of A Night, an incredibly well-done “rock’n’roller” built on a major scale that could easily stand in for one of the album’s lead songs (that’s what happens when the Accept riffs of Burning and I Am A Rebel run through its creator’s veins).
Author: Aleš Podbrežnik
track list:
01. Tongue Reaper
02. Make The Move
03. Keeper Of My Soul
04. In The Heat Of The Night
05. Raise The Game
06. Blood On Fire
07. Rising High
08. The Devil Is An Angel (bonus track on the “digipack” edition)
09. Hungry And Angry
10. One Heart One Soul
11. Pictures In My Dreams (bonus track on the “digipack” edition)
12. A Bite Of Evil
13. Eraser
14. Rose In The Desert
15. The Way
line-up:
Udo Dirkschneider – vocals
Andrey Smirnov – guitar
Fitty Weihhold – bass
Sven Dirkschneider – drums
