Artist: U.D.O.
Label: AFM Records
Release: 2004
Rating: 3/5
U.D.O. are terrorizing us again with a new studio album, their first for AFM Records, so it’s been so very looong since they’ve shown their faces anywhere near Slovenia. Once again the band holds its level, meaning the level of its predecessor and rabble-rouser “Man And Machine” (2002), so we got exactly what you can always expect from Udo Dirkschneider and company.
Pure, straight-ahead heavy metal from the first second to the last. Udo apparently just doesn’t know how to steer his band toward any other notes. Lucky us, right? Of course the guy is screeching like a triggered car alarm again, and God bless him, I mean his vocal cords, because they must be built from some seriously special stuff, probably wrapped in a fancy outer frame of pure titanium, so they don’t burn out after all those years of metal roaring. The rhythm section is solid, grounded, and of course noisily marching. The guitar riffs are, naturally, that “eighties” thing again, the open Judas Priest/Accept “olds school” kind, and alongside them there are once more simple and gorgeous classic guitar solos sparkling away. The punch and bombast hit a high level throughout the record and don’t let up for a moment. Trainride To Russia is a real stylistic detour on the album, with U.D.O. making use of genuine Russian harmonies, and the rhythms of the track might even get you spinning in a kazachok! Pull The Trigger is an especially impressive “fat” track from these metal wreckers, done in the style of classic Accept and their “Russian Roullete”, with a proper “rabble-rousing” chorus that is surely destined to land in the U.D.O. live set too!
There’s a bit more enthusiastic deviation from the “new” U.D.O. in the track with the monstrous mid-tempo “beat”, The Land Of The Midnight Sun, which opens up super dramatically, in the style of something like Heaven And Hell (Black Sabbath). The chorus of The Magic Mirror also sticks nicely in your ears. If we put the common denominator on the table at the end, this is yet another classic U.D.O. album, marked through and through by exceptional cohesion and all the classic heavy metal attributes that we understand by the name U.D.O. Fans of the band once again won’t have to think very hard about whether to pick up “Thunderball” or not!
Lineup
Udo Dirkschneider – vocals
Stefan Kaufmann – guitar
Igor Gianola – guitar
Fitty Wienhold – bass
Lorenzo Milani – drums
Production
Stefan Kaufmann
Tracklist
1. Thunderball
2. The Arbiter
3. Pull The Trigger
4. Fistful Of Anger
5. The Land Of The Midnight Sun
6. Hell Bites Back
7. Trainride In Russia (Poezd Po Rossii)
8. The Bullet And The Bomb
9. The Magic Mirror
10. Tough Luck II
11. Blind Eyes
Album length: 45:50
