Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

Sometimes you just have to let the bull rage, let the colossus of the animal world snort and devastate even the most delicate of china shops in the cause of smashing a few plates. That bull, the beast that can rip open a refusing ear at 200 yards, stares out from the front of the latest, and phenomenally brilliant, album by Accept and the Blind Rage of lyrical fury and crazed wrath crashes through the barrier between stereo and thought and holds the soul hostage till it realises that anger is not a fashion statement; it is deep, honest and fruitful.

Taking an album like Blind Fury by the horns is like asking somebody to bully a Tarantula into submission with just a menacing stare and a copy of The Beano, it might be amusing for a moment but you know it’s not going to end well. Blind Fury doesn’t ask for respect, it growls with the anger of a band finding that new beginnings are just as much fun as when they first start out with hope and confidence.

Part of the success of the previous albums from Accept must surely be down to the seemingly cordial working approach between former Sabbat member turned Producer Andy Sneap and Wolf Hoffman, Peter Baltes, Mark Tornillo, Herman Frank and Stefan Schwarzmann and the story is no different on Blind Rage. Mark Tornillo’s vocals growl like the mythical Minotaur as it battles Jason, it soars with the temper of an army defending the pass at Thermopylae and yet, there in the midst of musical battle that rages, a kindness, a kindred spirit for the Metal fan arises.

From the opening cacophony of Stampede, through the walled cauldron of Dark Side of My Heart, the superb Fall of the Empire, the overpowering brilliance of 200 Yards and the crashing blast of Bloodbath Mastermind, Accept have once more found the lust and exhilarating thirst to be one of the heaviest and readily accepted bands in the genre.  

The bull must rage and you can do nothing but accept that fact, Metal from Europe still remains a huge and dominant force.

Ian D. Hall