Accept, Hell @ Z7 Pratteln (SWI)

Just one week after the release of their awesome new album “Stalingrad”, ACCEPT was here in Switzerland to set the roof on fire and bring the warfare to this peaceful country!

It started really slow as the band HELL featuring famed producer Andy Sneap, despite an absolutely wonderful stage design and a flawless sound, never managed to convince the audience and of course yours truly! The concept was OK, but there wasn't any decent song, no hooks; so after 10 minutes it became very boring.

The return of ACCEPT in 2010 was triumphant, but now they proved that it was no fluke! The stage set was brand new, like the old one featured on the original “Restless & Wild” cover but with a steel structure more… Metallic… And Metal was the one and only obedience for the whole night,  they Metallized each and every one at the mighty Z7, they do that with an absolute victorious power and a supreme efficiency: as precise, disciplined and rigorously tight and accurate as Germanic Metal can be… The Teutonic commandos were back for good!

The tracks from “Blood of the Nations” as ”Bucket Full of Hate”, “Pandemic”, “No Shelter” or “Teuntonic Terror” are already classics and their presence in the future set-lists are already obviously reserved for years and years, in the same certitude as “Fast as a Shark” or “Breaker”. The new cuts from the brand new album are highly acclaimed: “Hellfire” was the opening song, both “Shadow Soldiers” & “Stalingrad” by now have already become fans favourites and they contain all the elements that made an ACCEPT hymn: a headbanging groove and chorus very easy to catch and a middle break with a melody to sing along in the same way as “Metal Heart”, “Balls to the Wall”, “Princess Of The Dawn” which were also the highlights of the night!

“Bulletproof”, ”Living for Tonite”, ”Up to the Limit” were also more than strong and effective, even if those weren't more exciting on paper; it all became very frightening and operative once played with such enormous determination! The audio was crystal clear, Mark Tornillo was as always perfect in his screaming role and the team worked perfectly with Wolf Hoffmann & Peter Baltes at the helm of missile ram as Herman Frank & Stefan Schwarzmann were the troopers in the devastated battlefield.