Hi, you wanna know about us?Album Type: Full Length
Date Released: 13/01/2017
Label: Nuclear Blast
“I like a good live album and this is a great one. Extensive, exhaustive, as hard as iron and as sharp as a rapier, Accept take no prisoners and attain new heights of metallic cohesiveness here. A well packaged and great value for money release. Highly recommended.”
“Restless and Live” CD//DD track listing:
1. Stampede
2. Stalingrad
3. Hellfire
4. London Leatherboys
5. Living For Tonite
6. 200 Years
7. Demons Night
8. Dying Breed
9. Final Journey
10. From The Ashes We Rise
11. Losers And Winners
12. No Shelter
13. Shadow Soldiers
14. Midnight Mover
15. Starlight
16. Restless And Wild
17. Son Of A Bitch
18. Pandemic
19. Dark Side Of My Heart
20. The Curse
21. Flash Rockin Man
22. Bulletproof
23. Fall Of The Empire
24. Fast As A Shark
25. Metal Heart
26. Teutonic Terror
27. Balls To The Wall
The Review:
Accept are a venerable metal institution; widely regarded as having recorded the first thrash or speed metal track with “Fast as a Shark” way back in the very early 80s. Since that time, of course, the band has had line-up changes, disbanded, re-formed and so on. With American singer Mark Tornillo coming on board for “Blood of the Nations” the band were back and, in my view, even better than ever. In fact, “Blood of the Nations” and “Stalingrad” stand as my favourite records, along with “Restless and Wild” and “Breaker”, by these German legends. Yes, Udo is gone, and yes the line up for this live feast is changed once again... but Hoffman and Baltes remain and along with Tornillo they form the nucleus of this powerful musical cell.
Captured on the European leg of the Blind Rage World Tour, this live record is a superb and exhaustive document of all that is great about Accept. Quite simply, this is a kind of cherry picked best of the band, from all eras, wrapped up in a powerful live sound. The band are on form on every track here and the material spans the decades seamlessly. Opening as it does with three latter days tracks (the “Blind Rage” album highlight “Stampede” gets things off to a flyer) and then a “Balls to the Wal”l deep cut, you know the band mean business and that you are getting the full Accept treatment.
At 27 (!) tracks long, this is perhaps a record that will only be listened to in part or on a long journey, but those marketing folks at Nuclear Blast know what they are doing and they deliver two discs- both packed with classics. The DVD and Blu Ray releases are also very well packaged and come with the live album on CD as well. I picked up the DVD and CD for a very reasonable price- money very well spent. As we don't have the DVD for review, and I have not had time to watch it yet, this writing only references the CD/MP3 live album.
Well, back to the music: it rocks, plain and simple. Metal classic after metal classic rips out of the stereo; “Dying Breed”, “No Shelter”, “Living for Tonite”, “Restless and Wild”, “Flash Rockin' Man”, “Fast As A Shark”, “Teutonic Terror”, “Metal Heart”... They are ALL here and ALL played superbly. This band are not young men any more, but they play and sound like they are.
If you have never checked Accept out, the best advice I can give you is to please do so, ASAP! For those that don't know, their sound is a hybrid of Judas Priest, the harder side of AC/DC, Iron Maiden and Motorhead. This is classic metal in every sense of the word and played in a style that is as tough as stainless steel. The band wisely stick to the most rocking material from “Blind Rage” (which was in parts a little too melodic for my taste) and in doing so, show that there is a lot of life left in this band yet. The fact that “Blind Rage” was a number one album in the German charts speaks volumes: this is a band at the peak of their powers. Every band member acquits themselves admirably, with Tornillo's tougher-than-leather vocals holding up extremely well.
I can't wait for the next studio record, but for now this live tour de force will do just fine. I like a good live album and this is a great one. Extensive, exhaustive, as hard as iron and as sharp as a rapier, Accept take no prisoners and attain new heights of metallic cohesiveness here. A well packaged and great value for money release. Highly recommended.
“Restless and Live”is available here
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