From the vaults: Accept – I’m a Rebel (1980)
Album number two from Accept was by no means the band’s best – but it was a helluva a blast. A long way from both the proto-thrash majesty of 1982’s ‘Restless & Wild’ or the slicker and simpler anthems of ‘Metal Heart’ and ‘Balls To The Wall’, ‘I’m A Rebel’ developed the best parts of the band’s debut and simplified them into something more distinctive. The title-track is the real gem here: a punky fist to the face of the Sunset Strip sound, and a call to arms for headbangers everywhere, it’s driving power are the duel guitars and searing leads of Wolf Hoffman and Jorg Fisher and the huge hooks spat out in Udo’s quintessential rasp. In many ways its crunchy hard rock defines the album, with ‘Thunder & Lighting’, ‘China Lady’ and ‘Do It’ delivering more of the same electric charge – short, simple and satisfyingly pure. Elsewhere the fantasy imagery and whiff of psychedellia on ‘Same Us’ recalls the work that Priest were producing the in the late ‘70s; and ‘No Time To Lose’ is a power-ballad with heavy Scorpions overtones which is both surprisingly evocative and proof that this type of song should not be dismissed out of hand because of the horrors which the end of the decade produced.
The Dio-esque fantasy of ‘The King’ might not be built on strong enough ingredients, but overall ‘I’m A Rebel’ deserves high praise than it receives. The band was still crystallising its sound – and you get the sense that they were holding back their urge to histrionics – but in 1980, how many heavy metal bands were as good (let alone better) than Accept?
Album number two from Accept was by no means the band’s best – but it was a helluva a blast. A long way from both the proto-thrash majesty of 1982’s ‘Restless & Wild’ or the slicker and simpler anthems of ‘Metal Heart’ and ‘Balls To The Wall’, ‘I’m A Rebel’ developed the best parts of the band’s debut and simplified them into something more distinctive. The title-track is the real gem here: a punky fist to the face of the Sunset Strip sound, and a call to arms for headbangers everywhere, it’s driving power are the duel guitars and searing leads of Wolf Hoffman and Jorg Fisher and the huge hooks spat out in Udo’s quintessential rasp. In many ways its crunchy hard rock defines the album, with ‘Thunder & Lighting’, ‘China Lady’ and ‘Do It’ delivering more of the same electric charge – short, simple and satisfyingly pure. Elsewhere the fantasy imagery and whiff of psychedellia on ‘Same Us’ recalls the work that Priest were producing the in the late ‘70s; and ‘No Time To Lose’ is a power-ballad with heavy Scorpions overtones which is both surprisingly evocative and proof that this type of song should not be dismissed out of hand because of the horrors which the end of the decade produced.
The Dio-esque fantasy of ‘The King’ might not be built on strong enough ingredients, but overall ‘I’m A Rebel’ deserves high praise than it receives. The band was still crystallising its sound – and you get the sense that they were holding back their urge to histrionics – but in 1980, how many heavy metal bands were as good (let alone better) than Accept?
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