Review by Daniel for Accept - Staying a Life (1990)
German heavy metal stalwarts Accept & I have had a funny relationship over the years. I’m not a fan of their first two albums but have invariably found appeal in the subsequent string of four records that took them from 1981’s “Breaker” through to 1985’s “Metal Heart”. That isn’t really an unusual comment given that this is generally regarded as Accept’s classic era however the thing that sets me apart from other metalheads is that I can’t quite seem to push my appreciation dial up from the “quite like” setting to the “really enjoy” one with each of the four records achieving a respectable 3.5 star rating from me. It’s likely for this reason that I’ve never explored Accept’s discography any further, even after the band’s apparent return to form in the 2010’s. I recently found myself browsing the tracklisting from 1990’s “Staying A Life” double live album though & it struck me that I knew literally every track which surprised me as I’d always assumed that it would include material from Accept’s late 80’s albums. Upon further investigation I discovered that it was actually recorded at a show in Osaka, Japan on the tour for “Metal Heart” in 1986 & includes only tracks from the four albums that I enjoy which left me feeling hope that my chances of finding an Accept release that I genuinely love were still alive. I quickly added it to my March playlist & looked forward to seeing what “Staying A Life” had to offer.
“Staying A Life” includes fifteen tracks & spans 73 minutes, presumably so that it’d fit onto a single CD. The production is pretty good as it presents Accept in warts & all fashion & manages to capture the guitar crunch they’ve built their careers on pretty well with Peter Baltes’ bass lines providing plenty of weight. Udo Dirkschneider’s signature growl is in full effect &, while he’s not always on the money as far as pitch goes, you’re unlikely to be disappointed if you’re a fan of his powerful, gravel-throated shrieks which are always the centre of attention. Lead guitarist Wolf Hoffmann has the opportunity to contribute a four minute guitar solo section which starts off in exciting fashion before descending into mere crowd-interaction during the second half which seems like a missed opportunity.
As with most live albums, you’ll find that some tracks manage to surpass their studio counterparts while others struggle to keep up with them. I’ve always found “Son Of A Bitch” & AC/DC-worshipping “Dogs On Leads” to be nothing more than filler on their respective albums but here they seem to offer me more appeal. Light-weight Van Halen clone “Screaming For A Love Bite”, hard rocker “Up To The Limit” & an over-extended version of Accept’s calling card “Balls To The Wall” fall on the other side of the equation by not quite doing their studio versions justice, even though “Balls To The Wall” still represents one of the highlight tracks thanks to that energizing pre-chorus. The real highlight of “Staying A Life” wasn’t a surprise to me though as “Princess Of The Dawn” has always been one of my favourite heavy rock tracks with it’s tension & dynamics never failing to capture me. Strong renditions of “Restless & Wild”, “Love Child” & “Flash Rockin’ Man” are also high on my list.
Accept’s sound has always kept one foot in the world of heavy metal with the other ensuring that they never quite let go of their hard rock roots & “Staying A Life” is a perfect showcase of that approach with the tracklisting being very much a hybrid of the two apart from a couple of pumping speed metal pumpers in “Breaker” & “Fast As A Shark”. That’s not an issue as the band are good exponents of all of those three sounds, even if they’re often guilty of tip-toing along the plagiarism line at times. As with NWOBHM icons Saxon, Accept have built up their back catalogue by harnessing the qualities of Judas Priest, AC/DC & (to a lesser extent) Van Halen & they generally do it pretty well even though they rarely surpass their idols. Their albums are inevitably a little inconsistent in my opinion & some of that can be put down to their tendency to jump between those sounds which happens again here. “Screaming For A Love Bite” & “Living For Tonite” don’t do much for me at all & tarnish an other pretty decent tracklisting while other songs do some great build-up work only to drop the ball a bit with a disappointing chorus & that pretty much sums up why I’ve never managed to worship Accept like so many others do.
In saying that though, I find Accept to be a pretty good mixtape band in that they have some really high-quality songs but rarely stretch that out to consistently high quality albums. “Staying A Life” benefits from this by grouping many of the band’s best tracks together & for this reason I find it to be the strongest Accept release I’ve heard, just slipping past 1982’s “Restless & Wild” to take the title. I still can’t say that I see Accept as being an elite heavy metal band & I may never get there but it's nice to see them getting closer to the bar so this exercise has been worthwhile.