U.D.O. - Mastercutor
AFM Records – AFM 159-2
By Chris Kee
Some cheesy game-show music opens the latest offering from legendary vocalist Udo Dirkschneider and his men, then a voice bellows ”…your host tonight…the Mastercutor!” and we’re off. The sharp metallic riffing is quickly joined by those unmistakeable vocals and you’re soon lost in big, big choruses and shimmering solos all immaculately produced by Stefan Kaufmann. Mastercutor is a near faultless slab of traditional Germanic metal. In all honesty there has been little deviation from the stylistic blueprint that U.D.O. laid down with Animal House some twenty years ago. However in terms of quality this latest album is up there with the best that the band have produced and if you’re an U.D.O. or Accept fan whose appetite for their Teutonic metal efforts is yet to be sated then Mastercutor will not disappoint.
The terribly earnest ballad ’Tears Of A Clown’ might prove a little difficult to swallow for some and the choruses are a little big and bombastic for my taste but there’s enough great metal in evidence to get over that. There’s so many cracking riffs that the things are practically tripping over each other! ’We Do – For You’ sums things up nicely, ”Raging heavy metal…keeping to the plan”. You have to afford a degree of respect to Udo Dirkschneider – nearly thirty years in the metal business and still turning out unflinching metal albums like this, unbowed and unbroken. In the words of album finale ’Crash Bang Crash’, ”…it’s not over yet!”
Official U.D.O. Website
Official AFM Website
AFM Records – AFM 159-2
By Chris Kee
Some cheesy game-show music opens the latest offering from legendary vocalist Udo Dirkschneider and his men, then a voice bellows ”…your host tonight…the Mastercutor!” and we’re off. The sharp metallic riffing is quickly joined by those unmistakeable vocals and you’re soon lost in big, big choruses and shimmering solos all immaculately produced by Stefan Kaufmann. Mastercutor is a near faultless slab of traditional Germanic metal. In all honesty there has been little deviation from the stylistic blueprint that U.D.O. laid down with Animal House some twenty years ago. However in terms of quality this latest album is up there with the best that the band have produced and if you’re an U.D.O. or Accept fan whose appetite for their Teutonic metal efforts is yet to be sated then Mastercutor will not disappoint.
The terribly earnest ballad ’Tears Of A Clown’ might prove a little difficult to swallow for some and the choruses are a little big and bombastic for my taste but there’s enough great metal in evidence to get over that. There’s so many cracking riffs that the things are practically tripping over each other! ’We Do – For You’ sums things up nicely, ”Raging heavy metal…keeping to the plan”. You have to afford a degree of respect to Udo Dirkschneider – nearly thirty years in the metal business and still turning out unflinching metal albums like this, unbowed and unbroken. In the words of album finale ’Crash Bang Crash’, ”…it’s not over yet!”
Official U.D.O. Website
Official AFM Website
