1124. Accept / Too Mean to Die. 2021. 3.5/5

Accept feels like they have been around forever, but there are two distinct eras to the band. After sitting in a self-imposed retirement for almost 14 years after the band had gone on to separate projects, original band members guitarist Wolf Hoffmann and bass guitarist Peter Baltes got together and found they still had music to write together. With original vocalist Udo Dirkschneider not interested in a return to the band, former vocalist for T.T. Quick Mark Tornillo was recruited to take his place, and the album Blood of the Nations was released, and became was a barnstorming moment, and though many critics felt that after such a lengthy absence and without Dirkschneider that the band should have let good enough be enough and not resurrect the name of Accept, they were shown to be wrong.Three more albums have followed since then, each of them excellent in their own way, and now their fifth studio release since their renaissance has been released, titled Too Mean to Die. It hasn’t been without loss however, with both guitarist Herman Frank and drummer Stefan Schwarzmann leaving the band prior to “The Rise of Chaos” album, and then long time bass guitarist Peter Baltes moving on after that tour. It left Wolf Hoffmann as the last of the original band, but onwards they moved forward. Indeed, Accept has been a strange beast, and as popular as their albums from the 1980’s had been, since their return in 2010 they actually appear to have gotten heavier, shaking off their tag of being an AC/DC type clone in the big selling days. In many ways this has been through the addition of American Tornillo on vocals and as a songwriter, as his background appeared to energize the group and their song output.
Martin Motnik, former bass guitarist for Uli Jon Roth, joined the band for the new album, and alongside newer members Uwe Lewis and Christopher Williams came a third guitarist in Philip Shouse, and even though it may not be the Accept band that everyone remembers from all oof those years ago, it is an Accept that has found a way to produce hard electrifying music.

In many ways, Too Mean to Die is a result of the old saying “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it”. Although the band lost a third of its song writing team with the departure of Baltes, Hoffmann and Tornillo along with Hoffmann’s wife and band manager Deaffy continue on in hard hitting fashion. And while the music still holds that same flavour that Accept has had throughout its existence, it does have a heavier feel about it. Back in the 1980’s on those early albums, it was more of a hard rock feel, but now well into the new century and in the second era of Accept things have progressed. Blazing guitars, plenty of hard hitting and double time drums, and vocals that aren’t that far removed from what Udo provided back in the day. Not only is the song writing terrific, the lyrics are excellent, harping on issues such as addiction to phones and social media, social media influencers, fearmongering by the media, and of course the pandemic that stretches around us. The addition of a third guitarist to the recording band does add to the great sound produced, and in some songs brings out further highlights so differently from the days when Wolf Hoffmann was holding the fort alone.
Even if you haven’t heard any Accept albums before – and really, if you haven’t, you must be living on another planet – you will find plenty to like here. Starting off with the excellent “Zombie Apocalypse” and the title track “Too Mean to Die” the album comes at you with a kick from the beginning. The band still shows its versatility throughout, mixing the straight up metal heaviness of “Sucks to be You” and “Symphony of Pain” and “Not My Problem” with the middle of the road hard rock tidings of songs like “The Undertaker”, and even the (somewhat unfortunate) standard power ballad that European bands still feel they need to poke us with in “The Best is Yet to Come”. I can guarantee you that I would still rather more songs like the former three than like the power ballad. I’m sure they appeal to some of you out there, but honestly if you take out “The Best is Yet to Come” and add in another track similar to “Sucks to be You”, this becomes a ball tearer of an album rather than just another very good entry into the Accept discography.

I don’t mind admitting that I was surprised by how good Accept’s comeback album was back in 2010. Accept’s classic albums have some great songs on them, but they are most definitely tied to the era they were recorded. They are generally hard rock, in an AC/DC fashion that in some ways held them back on their first albums. But their albums over the last decade have been a revelation, finding that extra grunt and excitement and kick that has given them more life than anyone could have expected. And while band leader Wolf Hoffmann must take a lot of the credit for that, Mark Tornillo and his vocals have been a revelation, and continue to be here on Too Mean to Die. No one expected the band to succeed without Udo Dirkschneider on vocals, and yet they have done more than that, they have thrived and gone to another level, and that is something rare in the music industry.
This album continues the band’s upward trend, and given the problems faced by the music industry since the beginning of 2020 this is quite a feat. Having given this album a good workout over the last couple of months I would love to get the chance to hear some of these songs live, because I think that is where they would get to the next level, in that live environment.