Album Review: Accept - Humanoid
Reviewed by Drew McCarthy
Accept seem to be one of those bands that for whatever reason never seemed to reach the same dizzying heights as their Heavy Metal counterparts such as Iron Maiden and Judas Priest which is a great shame, as on the strength of their back catalogue and the new album Humanoid, they deserve to be a lot more lauded than they seem to be.
Humanoid is a very self explanatory title for the album, the cover depicting an evil looking robot surrounded by a crowd of downtrodden looking humans, with a futuristic, almost dystopian looking city in the background. Though it is not a concept album, it does address topics such as AI and how in modern times, humans seem to have become too dependent on technology and how this is leading to individuality being stripped away.
Humanoid opens with Diving Into Sin with an almost Middle Eastern influenced intro, coupled with the aggressive vocals that we are all familiar with, it is definitely not what I would of expected from an album from Accept, but surprisingly it works incredibly well. Straight Up Jack is a song that I think would not sound out of place on an AC/DC album, the lyrics describing many ways in which to consume alcohol. The riff and structure of the song is something that Angus Young could have written.
Ballads are not something that you would generally associate with a band like Accept, but that is exactly what we are treated to in the form of the song, Ravages Of Time, a song that does not sound too dissimilar to The Unforgiven by Metallica and like that aforementioned song, confronts us with a subject that every one of us can relate to. The inevitably of getting older and how life takes its toll, while Unbreakable speaks of something that is incredibly profound, not just in Metal, but in music as a wholea d that is the bond between a band and fans.
Humanoid is a ballsy, ferocious, and altogether dynamic sounding album that while still retaining the classic sound that people have come to know and love from Accept, has subtle nuances peppered throughout, giving the album an altogether different feel to the previous albums.
