НазадTHE RED BRIGADE(Kerrang! No. 117, April 3-16, 1986, pp.24-29)Malcome Dome spins the chamber, raises barrel to temple, squeezes the trigger and closes his eyes in glorious celebration of ACCEPT, 'perhaps the best heavy Metal act in the world' and currently headlining a major UK tour I got drunk the night before I left for Nuremberg. it wasn't intentional, more an intensive ritual decreed by a particularly virulent Mother nature, whose bosoms were flowing with Jack Daniels and whose eyes were streaming with Absolut vodka. Yeah, remember when you were young and your mummy tucked you in with a cautionary tale about the Bogey Man? Well, he's on the street alright, shoes cuffed with a life in the gutter, shirt-tails ragged from a vapid scuffle with the grime of the leathered nether world, a jaunty stubble, a licensing hours leer reflected in a glowering fountain of al-alcoho-alcohol...and an Accept tape flashing from between his grid-iron teeth. Yeah, I was drunk as I poured myself another stumbler of something invigoratingly intoxicating, showed a cassette of 'Russian Roulette' into my ears- and stared at the Bogey Man in the mirror. 'Give me your innocents, your hungry and your waifs and I shall return to you red-eyed renegades.' Thus spake the Pagan Polydecibel Totem many econs ago, and he was true to his word. Black Sabbath, Deep Purple, Hendrix, Motorhead, Judas Priest, Metallica, Maiden, Scorpions... he has used them all to bring about his prophecy as he ran a comic-strip scimitar across the stencil of youth-hood. And now Accept have emerged as his latest temptation. And now I'm in Nuremberg to witness for myself those gladiators in the ring. And now I'm still bloody drunk! You can't escape the pallid philosophy with which Nuremberg has punctured modern history. Even at rock 'n' roll venue in 1986, the echoes of youth rallies called under the spectre of hate 50 years ago still reverberate. There is an undeniable, anonymous animosity about the city that inevitably sends shivers down chilled spines. Half-a-century on from the days when a generation of miscreant children was turned into a perverted crusade, war remains a facination and Nuremberg a symbol of it's seductive cloth. Accept, maybe because of a background scooped from the blood of a lost generation, have become ardent advocates for turning swords into ploughshares; Isaiah's progeny prepared to make the effort of exorcism. We'll return later to the laudable anti-violence theme adopted by the band amidst recent grooves, but this is beginning to take on the brood of Bernard Levin, so let's grab a drink, snap on a rock 'n' roll party belt and slither into the darkness as the music groans louder, Louder, LOUder, LOUDER... There are 5,000 fans out in the close-shaven hall; sweat is pumped into every crevice and the throng are in a state of near hysteria as the band go guttural across the boards with the hyper-peddling waves of 'TV War', one of five tracks from the new 'Russian Roulette' album to be included in the set. And then it hits me in a frenzy of self-realisation- CRUELTY! Yeah, that's the most apt description of Accept's style. Let me explain. Whilst the most reasonable adjective to sum up the American race psyche would be 'exaggerated' and I can think of several unprintable words for the Belgians and French, the Germans are characterised by the trait of cruelty. It's almost an hereditary by-product, and the consequences can be genocidal- as history has born witness. Yet, if this is refined to the point of beneficence, and the sadism neutered, then the sting can have positive artistic spin-offs. The truly great contributors to the Aryan 'art' world (Wagner, Richard Strauss, Goethe, Neitzche, Proust, Fassbinder et al) have mastered the caging of their naturally destructive instinct and shared a common thread of cruelty in their works. Accept have acquired a similar outlook. Their music has a degree of severity and aggression that does bring to mind sadism without the implicit violence- a triumph of artistic expression. Indeed, given the fact that Heavy Metal is most commonly seen as the channelling of baser emotions into a harmless outlet, then Accept can surely now lay claim to being one of the great HM acts of the late Eighties and arguably the natural successors to Judas priest as the flagship of the genre. Musically, Accept now have a veritable shoal of magnificent, finned material. They defined their style on the classic 'Restless And Wild' LP (although according to lead guitarist Wolf Hoffmann, it was its predecessor, 'Breaker', that laid the foundations) and now seem to spend much of their recording time honing, sifting and nurturing what has already set them apart from the masses. At the very core of this campaign lies Hoffmann's voluptuous guitar work, perhaps the most essential ingredient in the band's alchemical formula. Watching him onstage, it becomes obvious that he acts as the rudder and his oft-classical inspired lead approach gives the music its fluent dimension (his solo even cops a quick snatch from Bizet's 'Carmen'). He draws Udo Dirkschneider, Stefan Kaufmann, Peter Baltes and Jorg Fischer into the firestruck mesh, but always remains an Atlas figure, holding aloft Accept's musical world for all to acclaim. There is still a precision in choreography and suffused polish about Accept that has become a trademark, but these days the band seem rather more relaxed, even injecting a sense of humor into proceedings during the song 'Russian Roulette' when Hoffmann and Fischer goose-step across the stage (Hoffmann: "It's a piss-take both of the Nazis and also the Communist bloc armies and to some extent we got the idea from John Cleese in 'Fawlty Towers'. People always assume that Germans don't have any sense of humor, especially about ourselves, but we do!") Gone are the days when I first saw the band (playing before some 20 or so fans at a seedy hall in Hamburg, 1980) and their performances clearly had drive and passion yet were too stiff, lacking direction, momentum and balance. Both of the two shows I saw (Nuremberg and the next night in Munich) were sold out (in excess of 15,000 people saw the pair) and the 'Russian Roulette' LP entered the German national charts at Number Ten, a hitherto unheard-of-triumph for a home-bred Metal group. Elsewhere, too, there is a growing interest in the act and the feeling that this might, just might, be their year. The live set is based very firmly around the new album, a seal of confidence is worthy material. It's fleshed out with priceless chinks from the LPs 'Breaker', 'Restless And Wild', 'Balls To The Wall' and 'Metal Heart', records that have all been clutched to the bosom of the Metallic community (no songs are included from their first two albums, 'Accept'/'I'm a Rebel', because, according to Baltes, "We hate them!"). And talking inbetween gulps of red, red wine backstage at Munich with the articulate yet intent Baltes and Hoffmann in a room that resembles a police interrogation centre, it transpires that there's an air of quiet satisfaction among the band with the structure of the show, even so early into what will be an eight-month world tour. "The material really flows so well," says Hoffmann. "In the past we've changed around the order of songs almost every night for the first few weeks until the feel was right. But we seem to have hit on the right formula straight way." "We're still performing our movements during the new songs," adds Baltes. "But the right co-ordination will come in time. And I hope you noticed that we don't have long, drawn-out solos throughout our set. That's deliberate because we believe that the modern fan is bored of musicians just wanking off with tedious instrumental breaks. They want to see a spectacular show and we try to give them what they want." On the German leg of the tour, the band were forced to cut out all planned pyros because of an accident right at the beginning of the trek; police with tracker dogs were out in force in Munich to enforce the 'No Pyrotechnics' decree and apparently if any trace of flashpowder had been found then the entire home run would have been cancelled. Fortunately, this didn't happen. Yet, whilst the band are planning on using pyro effects wherever possible it won't be on overkill but rather tethered to enhancement of the stage setting. "We want to make it look impressive without seemed overly cliched," explains Hoffmann. "For instance, during the song 'Russian Roulette', we have electronic effects digitally built into Stefan's drum kit to mimic the sound of a time bomb ticking and then exploding. It would have been the easiest thing in the world to incorporate cannons into the staging but that is merely copying AC/DC and what we want to avoid is being taken for a band without any thoughts of our own." Although both the music and show are bound to deservedly attract attention, what is almost certainly going to grab the headlines is the band's determinedly anti-war lyrical strut. A word sheet has been included with the 'RR' album, so you will be able to read for yourselves just how surefootedly the fellas deal with the subject (it's pacifism without submission), so rather than dwell on this for several reams, let's allow Hoffmann to be succint and leave you to ponder this slant at your own leisure. "We began to make statements about war on the 'Balls To The Wall' album, but people at our record label (Portrait) ran scared because they believed we went too far, too quickly and we mistakenly allowed ourselves to be persuaded against our better judgement to change tack on the 'Metal Heart' album. It's for this reason that we are all a little unhappy with that particular record, for while 'Balls...' is a classic album, 'Metal Heart' is an album with a few classic songs. Anyway, having learnt our lesson we decided to do what we wanted this time around. "Our lyrics talk about all aspects of war: personal, national and even the media. It's a send-up in many ways and I hope that people will accept the seriousness of the message whilst seeing the humor. That's why we wear mock uniforms onstage. Politically none of us support any accredited party, but look at the situation in its widest sense and hope others will appreciate what we are trying to say." As I mentioned before, I urge you to chew over the band's lyrics and digest their sentiments, but do it in your own good time. Meanwhile back at the bar, there are one or two other fascinating points about 'Russian Roulette'. For example, the album was to be called 'War Games' and a cover was even mocked up for it. However, Portrait believed that the company responsible for the major movie 'War Games' (put out a couple years ago) would sue the band over the title and therefore persuaded them to alter it. (It's also the title of the new Grave Digger LP- this too was probably a significant factor in Accept's change of heart- Ed.) "'Russian Roulette' was to have been the monicker for our next album, but we decided to go ahead with it this time around instead," reveals Hoffmann. "We had to get a new sleeve done and were also left in the situation of having a title song without the words 'Russian Roulette' being mentioned once! (For proof, see the lyrics printed in Mayhem issue 115.) You see the song was originally called 'War Games', so we had to make hasty plans to change it." Another point worth making is that 'RR' was produced by the band themselves, with the much-vaunted Michael Wagener recording it and doing the first series of mixes. "Michael isn't really a producer," is Baltes' opinion. "He's a fine engineer and a good friend of the band (he even went to school with Dirkschneider), but has to be used in a certain limited manner to get the best results." "What gave us the confidence to go ahead by ourselves was our recent mini-live album, 'Kaizoku-Ban'," adds Hoffmann. "It came out so well that we felt happy about making the new studio project. "Whilst I've mentioned 'Kaizoku-Ban', I feel one or two matters should be cleared up. Firstly, it was completely live! I know it's become fashionable for bands to overdub supposedly 'live' records, and I must admit that we were very tempted to do this, but at the end of the day we resisted this carrot and left the tapes as they were. "Secondly, it isn't a live album, but rather a mini-one, or an EP if you prefer. We did it originally because the Japanese market wanted it, then every other territory picked it up for release. It was never meant to be a huge event and we told everyone involved to keep the costs down and not to over-promote it because we felt that it should be a collectors' piece- a gift for our hardcore fans. "Anyway, after that came out, we did some demo tapes for 'RR' and they were sufficiently strong for us to go into the studio and do things ourselves. The band as a whole were responsible for the final sounds, although if I'm honest then I'd have to say that Peter, Stefan and myself did most of the production work. But we always credit the five of us because this is a team effort, we are all equal." "Michael mixed the album for us." continues Baltes. "But we weren't overly happy with what he did, it was a little flat. So we brought in Mark Dodson (engineer with Judas Priest) to add a touch of sparkle and the final record is one we're all proud of." However, despite (or maybe, more truthfully, because of) the confidence displayed by the band in their latest production, they have no plans to shoot a promotional video for any of the songs. "Why should we spend something like {English pound sign} 150,000, which is more than the entire recording budget for the LP, on a three-minute film that, if we're lucky, will get aired once per week?" argues Baltes. "We also believe that if Portrait want us to do a video then they should give us the money and allow the band to direct and control the content," affirms Hoffmann. "So far we have been extremely disappointed with the quality of those videos we have made. The one for the song 'Balls To The Wall' was particularly embarrassing and we don't want to go through this again. Besides, it does seem as if making videos isn't as important, even in America, as it was a couple of years ago, so if we can't do things properly then we won't do them at all." There can be little doubt that this is a band in control of its destiny. Alongside astute manager Gaby Hauke they have taken each and every step in their career at a pace that suits them rather than peripheral elementals... and the philosophy has served the boys well. Indeed one has to admire the manner in which the band have handled themselves, linking self-deprecating mimickry with suitably sophisticated musicianship in the great vaudeville tradition of HM. In particular, the sight in Nuremberg and Munich of the pug-featured Udo Dirkschneider stalking the stage like a squat Spike the Bulldog (Tom's nemisis in the cartoon 'Tom And Jerry' series) playing the role of Che Guevara was a cause of constant amusement, yet this was allied to a deft degree of control and the timing as his vulturine vocals grappled with the locomotion riflings of Kaufmann (drums), Baltes (bass) and Fischer (guitar) and the febrile leads from Hoffmann. Accept? Yeah, gargantuawatt gladiators with something serious to say, and the comic-strip ideology to say it with conviction. Perhaps the best Heavy Metal act in the world? You'll not find me disputing such praise, now who's round is it?! Перевод - Дмитрий Doomwatcher Бравый Журнал Kerrang! (Англия) № 117 3-16.04.1986г. автор: Malcolm Dome Малькольм Доум крутит барабан, приставляет пистолет к виску, спускает курок и закрывает свои глаза, чествуя Accept, наверное, лучшую хэви металлическую группу в мире, которая сейчас проводит масштабное хэдлайнерское турне по Англии. Я напился ночью, накануне моего отъезда в Нюрнберг. Так уж вышло, я сделал это не специально, экстремальный ритуал по указанию крайне враждебной Матушки Природы, чьи недра наполнялись виски Jack Daniels и чьи глаза требовали водки Absolut.
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