Band:	U.D.O.
Album:	Steelfactory
Style:	Heavy metal
Release date:	August 31, 2018
A review by:	nikarg

01. Tongue Reaper
02. Make The Move
03. Keeper Of My Soul
04. In The Heat Of The Night
05. Raise The Game
06. Blood On Fire
07. Rising High
08. The Devil Is An Angel [Digipak bonus]
09. Hungry And Angry
10. One Heart One Soul
11. Pictures In My Dreams [Digipak bonus]
12. A Bite Of Evil
13. What A Hell Of A Night [Japan bonus]
14. Eraser
15. Rose In The Desert
16. The Way

U.D.O. are back with their sixteenth studio album, Steelfactory, and it comes just after Udo Dirkschneider's worldwide tour under the name Dirkschneider, in which this heavy metal legend performed his Accept material for the last time. This chapter is supposed to be closed for good now and we have new music from U.D.O. to listen to. But does someone ever close one of the most successful chapters in his career?

Many people identify Udo as the voice of the best years of Accept and Steelfactory is clearly influenced by his time with them as well as the two-year tour during which he sang these classic songs live. The record as a whole has a vintage atmosphere and it is full of these anthemic, fists-in-the-air, sing-along compositions that work very well in a live setting. If the chorus of "One Heart One Soul" doesn't make the hair on the back of your neck stand up, you don't know what metal is.

Steelfactory is the first album to feature Udo's son, Sven, on drums. If you look at the band's promotional photos, Sven looks so much like a young Udo and, in my opinion, this is as metal as a family can get. Symbolically, the album epitomises the continuity of our favourite music, when new songs are built on the foundations of what has been sung countless times before by countless metalheads around the world. Yes, it may sound rehashed and recycled at times but I am not so naïve as to expect U.D.O. to come up with a curveball.

This is why I don't mind that "Make The Move" is so similar to "Living For Tonite" and "Up To The Limit" because it is still a great song. I enjoy the fact that "Blood On Fire" has this "La Cumparsita" solo just like "Metal Heart" featured the melody of "Für Elise". The dark atmosphere of "Keeper Of My Soul" and the duelling guitars of "In The Heat Of The Night" tingle my nostalgic senses. And I certainly don't care if "Tongue Reaper" borrows the riff off "Screaming For Vengeance", because it serves as an explosive opener. It is a pity though that it is the only fast song along with "Eraser" and I wish they hadn't included an even sillier version of "You've Got Another Thing Coming", in the form of "Hungry And Angry".

I have to point out that the persistence in crafting mid-tempo songs of a hymn character combined with the fact that the album clocks in at just under an hour does make Steelfactory feel somewhat tiresome and repetitive. Don't get me wrong though; U.D.O.'s latest work is full of hooks and will most certainly make you move your head, tap your feet and sing along its epic choruses and I, for one, look forward to watching these songs performed on stage.

Predictable as it may be, this is a highly emotional and no-bullshit work of a 66-year-old metal hero.

"When I hear the music playing, I hear the inner call
Keep going on forever, go on and give it all
My voice is growing older, my mind is staying young
So proud I did it my way, the road where I belong"