Band:	U.D.O.
Album:	Mastercutor
Style:	Heavy metal
Release date:	May 18, 2007
A review by:	Jeff

01. Mastercutor
02. The Wrong Side Of Midnight
03. The Instigator
04. One Lone Voice
05. We Do - For You
06. Walker Of The Dark
07. Master Of Disaster
08. Tears Of A Clown
09. Vendetta
10. The Devil Walks Alone
11. Dead Man's Eyes
12. Crash Bang Crash
13. Screaming Eagles [Ltd. European edition bonus]
14. Borderline [Ltd. European edition bonus]
15. Man A King Ruler [Japanese edition bonus]
16. Platchet Soldat [Russian edition bonus]

After a really bad album (the infamous "Mission N° X") Udo Dirkschneider and his personal combo had to react seriously. Honestly, the previous album was a joke and a bad one and all the fans of the great Udo and the one of Accept, were really disappointed by this release. But Udo is a real Metalhead this kind of guys who knows how to change things when they're bad. It's done with "Mastercutor" the new release of the German combo which is clearly better than "Mission N° X" and that's a good news really.

Don't expect anything new here; we're in front of a classic German Heavy Metal. Strong riff, catchy choruses and guitars soli in addition of the "special" and aggressive voice of Mr Udo, that's the recipe of this new album. And even if it can look a bit out of date, it works and "Mastercutor" features some good songs like "Mastercutor" or "The Wrong Side Of Midnight". But the good thing with this new release is that we have strong and heavy songs and sometime we're not so far away of German Thrash. "Walker In The Dark" or "Vendetta" are a lot more aggressive and heavier and even if it's not Kreator, it's good to see that Udo can still write songs in the vein of "Sick Dirty And Mean".

For the production, "Mastercutor" is just perfect. Well, it's hard that's right to find bad productions when it comes to the German releases but this album follow this trend and if you like to listen to crystal clean sound it will be for you. On the other hand if the production is perfect, I cannot say that the originality is here and that's the main problem of the album. If you like Accept or Udo and don't want anything else you can go for this one but if you need something new, then you'll have to run away to find a better release. It's just classic as hell and definitely not surprising.

Nobody was expecting something new with this release? and for sure we don't have anything new here but when you know the previous album of the combo, God it's just different like the day and the night. Udo is not dead yet, and it's good to see that he still can do good music. I will never talk about genius here but if you like German Metal, "Mastercutor" is probably for you.