U.D.O.: Game Over

Poba Published 2 February 2022

Label: AFM Records
Release date: October 22, 2021
Production: Martin “Mattes” Pfeiffer
Album length: 68.57 min
Genre: Heavy Metal
Rating: 9.0/10

You just can’t believe it. Here’s the seventeenth studio album from the German Teutonic metal veterans U.D.O. It’s loaded to the brim with sixteen tracks and almost seventy minutes of playing time (and if you’ve got the Japanese version of the album, there’s one more tune on top of that). Grit, perseverance, nobody can touch these guys. »Game Over«! The title gives you the feeling that it’s all done, as if humanity were living out its last days. Going by the title and this lavish helping of songs, that’s definitely the vibe. But the predecessor »Steelfactory« (2018, RockLine review) was packed to the brim too. And? »Game Over« is once again a flawlessly built studio record that keeps up the exceptional inspiration of its predecessor »Steelfactory« in terms of quality. How does a legend, one of the most recognizable voices in the history of heavy metal, who’s turning a round seventy this April, the one and only Udo Dirkschneider, always manage to keep up that kind of conviction? A stance that nothing can break.

The legendary vocalist is surrounded by four razor-sharp youngsters. It’s incredible how fascinatingly they click with the iconic singer. Alongside Udo once again is the outstanding Russian guitar virtuoso Andrey Smirnov, who has, among other things, studied the Accept legacy inside out, and who boasts classical training and musical discipline, plus that untamed, wild Eastern spirit of unbending Slavdom on the other side. Next to the Russian there’s the Slovenian Tilen Hudrap, who furiously and doggedly digs and tears at his bass through the core of the songs. This is already Tilen’s third U.D.O. album. The previous two were the live one from Plovdiv (2021, RockLine review) and the ‘special’ one, recorded in collaboration with the national orchestra of the German Armed Forces (“We Are One”, 2020, RockLine review). In Thunder Road, Tilen, together with Udo’s son Sven on drums, will straight-up blow you away. Smirnov also meshed brilliantly with guitarist Dee Dammers, who joined the crew at about the same time as Tilen Hudrap. You can feel it on the new album. In that sense, »Game Over« is even tighter, and definitely a lot more of a ‘band’ album than its predecessor »Steelfactory«. The two guitarists play off each other and read each other in a really fascinating way, in the solo duels and in the harmonized ornamental melodies over the phrasing, where there’s no shortage of sparkling inspiration in looking for solutions. In that regard, one of the peaks of this new guitar partnership is the one-of-a-kind Midnight Stranger. Then there’s one of the most inventive modulations inside the mid-eight passage in Empty Eyes (focus on the work of both guitarists again).

Yep. We’re back at Accept again. Udo Dirkschneider is a huge chunk of that band. For many fans there’s really no Accept without Dirkschneider. They don’t exist. And when Udo left Accept, he really did carry a giant piece of the musical mission over to U.D.O. If I’m being a bit cheeky and nasty, you hear more classic Accept in U.D.O. today than in the original Accept (in the end Baltes ‘bailed’ on Hoffmann too). So it comes down to weighing it up: Hoffmann vs. Dirkschneider. Pick for yourselves. Whatever. The two bands remain strongly linked stylistically and stay relevant to their fans with new studio releases too.

So the legendary singer rides a giant wave of creative drive, built on an inexhaustible momentum, which he largely owes to his rejuvenated band, full of joy and a hunger to prove themselves, with an untamed impatience to get their talents recognized. That surely does the veteran of all veterans among metal vocalists a world of good in his later years and in its own way ‘fires him up’ to squeeze out the best he’s got and can do. And vocally, the man doesn’t fade. He screams with the undiminished fury and burning intensity of his golden days. This unique vocalist stays carved in capital letters as one of the foundational voices that defined heavy metal itself. On this ‘giant’ seventeenth U.D.O. album too.

The songs are, one and all, almost proverbially razor-sharp in production and speak to you mercilessly. Devastatingly. With phrases that hit you right in the face. You can’t get more traditional or elementary than this. And that’s once again the biggest charm, the one you can only truly win over and take into your genes if you are (or were) part of this story. The album tears out of the gate like a bolt from the blue with an incinerating opening in the track Fear Detector. As expected. It can’t be any other way. We’re talking about U.D.O., after all. It’s all here. Even those absolutely thundering male choir vocals that surround Udo Dirkschneider’s vocal grinder in the chorus don’t go unheard. The assault of Prophecy, followed by the utterly dramatic Empty Eyes, and also the distinctly anthemic Time Control just before the end, are tracks that evoke the ‘jolt’ of U.D.O. albums from the nineties, like »Solid« and »Holy«. As we established a moment ago, there are plenty of songs on »Game Over«. A surprise on it is the AC/DC-style Kids And Guns, which brings one of the more significant departures from the band’s otherwise cemented style. The eighth track is the ballad Don’t Wanna Say Goodbye. In the already well-known . It worked. This track splits the album into two halves, more or less. So you’re allowed to catch your breath a little while listening to this hellish record. The second half brings a number of tracks that especially vividly ‘tease’ with the essence of the classic Accept days. Unbroken, Marching Tank, Thunder Road, and later Speed Seeker, speak to you in turn. The aforementioned Midnight Stranger carries a heftier dose of epic grandeur and pomp, and is an example of a track where all the fundamental ingredients that define the character of the current U.D.O. lineup come together very successfully in one place. The album closes with the fantastic metal ‘shrapnel’ Metal Damnation! Swapping its place in the tracklist with Fear Detector could easily have been done, which says it all about the ‘mockery’ of the song itself, with which the album »Game Over« wraps up.

Flawless execution. No matter the plethora of songs. No slip-ups, and they don’t run out of breath even the ‘seventeenth’ time around. Excellent playing, incredible inspiration, and a real sense of each other among the musicians. You can also tell that the newest lineup played an outstanding run of shows before heading into the studio. Commitment, drive, and dedication. Big heart. Everything is exactly where it needs to be. A little metal school in the craft of great masters, still led unbendingly by the one and only. Udo Dirkschneider. Hats off! Whatever the album title says, there’s no way anyone should believe this story is over already.

Author: Aleš Podbrežnik

Track list:
1. Fear Detector
2. Holy Invaders
3. Prophecy
4. Empty Eyes
5. I See Red
6. Metal Never Dies
7. Kids And Guns
8. Like A Beast
9. Don’t Wanna Say Goodbye
10. Unbroken
11. Marching Tank
12. Thunder Road
13. Midnight Stranger
14. Speed Seeker
15. Time Control
16. Metal Damnation