Author: Aleš Podbrežnik
Artist: Panzer
Label: Nuclear Blast
Release: 2014
Duration: 49:47
Rating: 4.5/5
A new metal album full of defiance! That’s what you get when three battle-hardened German musicians join forces: two members of Accept and one from Destruction. Your ears are already perking up, aren’t they? Herman Frank (guitar), Stefan Schwarzmann (drums) and his highness Schmier, head and beard included, on bass and vocals. Panzer is an album of sudden rage that leaves no survivors. Considering that Schmier was the last to join the project and added his vocal venom at the very last minute, the album »got off easy«, because most of the songs could have made up any of the last three Accept albums without breaking a sweat. It also becomes instantly clear that Herman Frank would have used those very same riffs for his own new solo studio album, if Schwarzmann, as the main instigator of the project, hadn’t managed to talk him into joining up.
Most of the riffs on these tracks come from Herman Frank, and if his Accept buddy follows him in the studio on rhythmic drive, then the answer to the question of what Panzer sound like is pretty much solved. The production is poisonously wound up, there’s rage and roar to burn, and the album hits its peak appeal precisely because the riffs feel primal, untamed and essentially heavy metal in the truest sense of the word. Schmier is the needle on the scale that tips the songs toward the aggressive and extreme-sounding. His vocal approach is certainly full of the recognizable trademarks that define the Destruction catalog, but this time, more than ever in his long career, Schmier is »forced« to hunt for a vocal melody. The veteran goes at it as if Destruction were in the studio with him, except that he bends the same vocal approach to fit new lead lines, which this time, of course, come out of the brain of Herman Frank. If you’re looking for anything that brings Panzer closer to Teutonic thrash metal, don’t throw in the towel. Freakshow owes plenty to the dirty punk arrogance of Motörhead and is a great warm-up for the thoroughly wound-up, thrash-tinged stretch of the album delivered by the song Mr. Nobrain, where Panzer, with an explosive guitar phrase, come close to the basic philosophy of Destruction’s notorious thrash metal aggression.
The album is monstrously possessed in its production and, in its fury, knows only the highest gear, while the guitar lines grind everything in their path without mercy. That’s why the band’s name couldn’t fit any better. Frank is uncompromising on guitar. On »Send Them All To Hell« he gives the best he’s got. Since Wolf Hoffmann decides how many guitar parts get played on Accept albums, Frank usually gets only »crumbs« in Accept. But Frank is no worse a guitarist than Hoffmann, and on Panzer’s debut he becomes a beast, thirsty for blood, that has just snapped its chains! The guitarist digs in with no brakes. The solos are pure brilliance and contain all the typical traits of Frank’s virtuoso adventures, embodied by his solo albums or his work with Victory.
The trio works perfectly, and the contributions of all three musicians are evenly spread across the album’s energy output. The raspy, screeching Schmier adds just the right amount of »filth« and holy rage, since his vocal is menacingly venomous to its core, the way he spoiled us with in Destruction, and a few times the band lands on an interesting leveling-out between elements of Accept, Victory, solo Herman Frank and elements of Teutonic thrash, to which, besides the holy trinity, we can also add the holy rage of bands like Exumer, Paradox, Vendetta, and even Coroner or Necronomicon. A perfect combination of the collision of these elements is, for example, the closing Bleed For Your Sins. It’s precisely this fusion of Teutonic heavy metal and Teutonic thrash that gives Panzer a dossier of distinctive hallmarks all their own, so this project is worth keeping alive in the future and putting out another studio album or two under the Panzer name!
The choruses are of course backed by »gang screams«, inherited from the Accept philosophy, except that in Panzer’s case they’re ominously tuned through effects to match the venom spewed out by the one and only Schmier. Panzer are an interesting cross between two worlds of the German approach to metal. Since the experiment worked, the album »Send Them All To Hell« will appeal both to fans of the classic elements of German heavy metal, led by Accept, Vicotry, Herman Frank’s solo work and also U.D.O., and at the same time will be highly attractive to all worshippers of the legacy of Teutonic thrash metal.
Lineup
Marcel “Schmier” Schirmer – bass, vocals
Herman Frank – guitar
Stefan Schwarzmann – drums
Production
Panzer
Track list
01. Death Knell
02. Hail And Kill
03. Temple Of Doom
04. Panzer
05. Freakshow
06. Mr. Nobrain
07. Why?
08. Virtual Collision
09. Roll The Dice
10. Bleed For Your Sins
