Accept

I knew very little about this band going into this listening. Of course I vaguely knew "Balls to the Wall," but that's about it. I recall Beavis and Butthead had some legit criticisms of that song.  And in the context of their full catalog I found that song, and the album it appears on, not particularly impressive. That was a bad sign, when a band's most famous song fails to make an impression. Their first few early albums are actually incredibly diverse and somewhat interesting, ping-ponging back and forth between proto-metal reminiscent of Motorhead and more poppy and accessible stuff, even venturing into disco territory at times.

Comparisons to the previous band are inevitably. The have about half as many albums as AC/DC, but share some values. In fact. "I'm a Rebel," the title track from their second album, was actually written for and possibly even recorded by AC/DC. The differences between the two bands effectively illustrate the differences between hard rock and heavy metal, with AC/DC rocking more often in blues progressions while Accept is more likely to rely on minor power chords and riffs. They opened for AC/DC during a 2010 revival.

They can also sound like Judas Priest at times, and in fact toured with them after 1981's Breaker. The albums is notable for being featured in the 1982 movie Nacht der Wolfe. My German's a little rusty, but I think that means Night of the Wolf.

On 1982's Restless and Wild it finally starts to sound like fast thrash metal. "Fast as a Shark" is not even that fast by today's thrash standards, but it was speedy for 1982. Cannibal Corpse covers a song from this album, so that's a good sign. I agree with the assessments that this album is important for the development of speed metal, and I see it as more groundbreaking than its more successful and popular follow up, 1983's Balls to the Wall.

Another band we can't help but compare them to is The Scorpions - another heavy German band singing in English. In fact they borrowed a producer from The Scorpions for 1985's Metal Heart, which is a VERY 1985 sounding album. It's another of their vaguely conceptual album, this one about the techno-dystopian future of 1999, but seems too calculated with greater emphasis on melodies and hooks. That continued with the next few albums, including Eat The Heat, which confirms their desire to crack into the American pop music charts with the inclusion of a new American singer, essentially their Sammy Hagar. I realize it's kinda like listening to the Judas Priest discography and really digging those Ripper albums, but these three weird albums in the middle of the career with different singers were actually a welcome respite from music that was starting to get tedious. They still do heavier numbers, and the switch between completely different vocal and musical styles can be jarring at times. If "Stand 4 What U R" isn't the soundtrack to an 80s movie's training montage  than I don't know what it is, but it immediately precedes the far angrier "Hellhammer" on the album.

They go though various significant line-up changes through their career, but apparently many of the departures are amicable. Around 1984 a bunch of guys that used to be in Accept form the band Bad Steve...and open for Accept on a world tour. Then the former lead singer leaves for a solo project, and the band helps him write it. Then his band contributes backing vocals on the next Accept album.

They have a couple comeback albums with the old singer starting in 1993, they break-up in 1997, but then they have a weird thing where they reform in 2009 with a new singer, and somewhat updated--more distinctly metal--sound. It is then that they release three of their most popular albums ever, all these just since 2009. And this is some potentially fascist bullshit, though I must begrudgingly admit it is more consistently decent and brutal metal - though they still aren't above the occasional power ballad that peppered their earlier albums. Their fifteenth studio album The Rise of Chaos will be released this summer (2017). It was made by the same producer as those last three successful albums, but now the drummer and one of the guitar players have changed out too. In a recent interview band guitar stalwart Wolf Hoffmann connected the title to their paranoid, trigger-happy world view, with specific references to both climate change and Europe's refugee crisis. I had suspected as much after listening to their  recent albums, especially on the aptly titled Blood of the Nations, with it's racial paranoia ("Teutonic Terror" and the title track) and explicit calls for radical violence ("Beat the Bastards"). It's too much for me. These guys might be connected to the birth of trash in some ways, but they are missing out on the fun parts. I get that their politics are complex and layered (what with their conscious environmentalism and distrust of authority), but it's too much of the ole' ultra-violence- and I see too much of a contradiction in their extreme nationalism mixed with calls for revolution against our oppressors. In their defense, they are not really out front espousing these xenophobic totalitarian political views that permeate their most recent albums, other than to defend their use of militaristic imagery, but you'll find plenty of praise for them in the dark Nazi-tinged corners of the internet.

I was ready to dismiss the band outright after all that vaguely racist stuff, but their most recent live album (the last thing I heard) offers a glimmer of redemption, at least musically. As the title suggests Restless and Live revisits some of the key tracks from their seminal Restless and Wild album, although it predominately offers songs from their most recent albums. Hearing this most recent incarnation of the band rip through "Fast as a Shark" was impressive, and skipping over their clunkier numbers for the tight set-list helped enormously. When it's just the highlights it sounds more like good solid thrash. I was reminded that their occasional  allusions to classical pieces show they aren't talentless heathens; he gets the crowd to sing "Fur Elise" at one point! Whatever faults this band may have, musically or politically, they are no more cheesy than Judas Priest or Iron Maiden. They are less complex than Megadeth but more epic than Motorhead. To be very generous, it's like Slayer at their slowest, perhaps closer to Anthrax, but far more serious and less fun. They are more yelling at me than with me, so I imagine Exodus (or their fans) like this band. It's good enough music to play in the background while cleaning out the garage or something. Ultimately, I must admit that the musicianship and fans' enthusiasm on display in their live performances got me to tick the needle up a bit for them from "Hard Pass" to "Acceptable."