THE OLD GUARD will remember German heavy metal outfit Accept for their classic Eighties records Restless and Wild (1982), Balls to the Wall (1983) and Metal Heart (1985). And that’s with good reason, as those records are iconic within traditional metal circles.
The Nineties, however, were a different story. Shifts in Accept’s lineup and some interesting but somewhat unsuccessful experimentation led to a few albums that read back a little funny. Though resilient, by the Noughties, Accept was on the ropes. But in 2010, the period that lone heyday holdover Wolf Hoffmann calls “a new era” began. Now, 14 years later, with Humanoid, Accept is looking stronger than ever.
It’d be all too easy to take the shiny, new energy surrounding and label it as Accept’s best. Hoffmann, ever pragmatic, is aware of this, saying, “That’s always a tough one because, man, I’ve been really close to it. I don’t even like to judge my own records,
