Metal Heart

This article is about the album by Accept. For the song by Cat Power, see Moon Pix. For the song by Garbage, see Bleed Like Me.
Metal Heart
Studio album by Accept
Released March 4, 1985 (1985-03-04)
Recorded Dierks Studios, Stommeln, Cologne, Germany, October–December 1984
Genre Heavy metal
Length 39:38
Label RCA (Europe)
Portrait (US)
Producer Dieter Dierks
Accept chronology
Balls to the Wall
(1983)		 Metal Heart
(1985)		 Kaizoku-Ban
(1985)
Singles from Metal Heart
  1. "Midnight Mover / Wrong Is Right"
    Released: March 1985
  2. "Screaming for a Love-Bite / Wrong Is Right"
    Released: 1985
  3. "Midnight Mover / Screaming for a Love-Bite"
    Released: 1985 (promo)
Professional ratings
Review scores
SourceRating
AllMusic[1]
Martin Popoff[2]

Metal Heart is the sixth studio album by German heavy metal band Accept, released in 1985. Although the group had recorded before at Dierks-Studios, this was the first album produced by Dieter Dierks himself. This album was a cautious attempt to crack the lucrative American market with more accessible songcraft and emphasis on hooks and melodies. Although critically panned at the time, today Metal Heart is often considered by fans as one of the band's best records.[3] It contains several of their classic songs such as "Metal Heart" and "Living for Tonite". The band also makes a detour into jazz metal territory with the unusual song "Teach Us to Survive".

Album information

Wolf Hoffmann explained the concept behind the album: "We had read an article that someone was working on an artificial heart and that one day everybody is going to have a computerized heart. It talked, in general terms, about how more and more of humanity gets sucked out of the daily life and more and more replaced by machine. It's not a new thing now, but then it was new. Humans versus machine, was the general vibe of the record." The original cover concept was for a hologram of a metal heart, until budget considerations resulted in a traditional cover. But fittingly for the futuristic theme of the album, Metal Heart was the first Accept album to be digitally mastered.[4]

Hoffmann recalls Dieter Dierks as a very demanding producer: "We would do some pieces several dozen times trying to capture what he had in his mind for a specific section," adding: "Each song we tried different combinations of guitars, mic'ing and even strings!"[4]

The song "Metal Heart" is well known for containing the cover of two famous classical themes: Tchaikovsky's "Slavonic March" (in the intro) and Beethoven's "Für Elise" in the main riff and solo. This song was covered in 1998 by Norwegian black metal band Dimmu Borgir for their album Godless Savage Garden. "I had no idea it would become as popular as it did," Hoffmann remembers of his contribution to the song.[4]

"Midnight Mover", about a drug dealer, is one of the more commercial songs on the album and was selected for a memorable music video that anticipates the bullet time filming technique by a full decade. "Just ahead of our time again!" jests Hoffmann.[4]

Despite the more commercially appealing sound of the album, it fell short of the sales figures of its predecessor Balls to the Wall in America. Udo remembers the Breaker through Metal Heart era as the time when the band got along best together.[5] Thus this would turn out to be the last album of Accept's golden era, as cracks were soon to appear in the band's solidarity.

The digitally remastered CD edition includes two live bonus tracks, "Love Child" and "Living for Tonite", both taken from the live EP Kaizoku-Ban.

Track listing

All lyrics and music written by Accept and Deaffy.

Side one
  1. "Metal Heart" – 5:19
  2. "Midnight Mover" – 3:05
  3. "Up to the Limit" – 3:47
  4. "Wrong Is Right" – 3:08
  5. "Screaming for a Love-Bite" – 4:06
Side two
  1. "Too High to Get It Right" – 3:47
  2. "Dogs on Leads" – 4:23
  3. "Teach Us to Survive" – 3:32
  4. "Living for Tonite" – 3:33
  5. "Bound to Fail" – 4:58

Credits

Band members
Production

Charts

Chart Peak
position
Canadian Albums (RPM100)[6] 86
German Albums (Offizielle Top 100)[7] 13
Norwegian Albums (VG-lista)[8] 9
Swedish Albums (Sverigetopplistan)[9] 4
Swiss Albums (Schweizer Hitparade)[10] 14
UK Albums (OCC)[11] 50
US Billboard 200[12] 94

References

  1. ↑ Rivadavia, Eduardo. "Accept Metal Heart review". AllMusic. Rovi Corporation. Retrieved January 31, 2013.
  2. ↑ Popoff, Martin (November 1, 2005). The Collector's Guide to Heavy Metal: Volume 2: The Eighties. Burlington, Ontario, Canada: Collector's Guide Publishing. ISBN 978-1-894959-31-5.
  3. ↑ Popoff, Martin. "Accept - Balls to the Wall". Martin Popoff.com. Retrieved January 30, 2013.
  4. 1 2 3 4 Hoffmann, Wolf. "Metal Heart". Wolf Hoffmann official website. Archived from the original on June 11, 2000. Retrieved January 31, 2013.
  5. ↑ Stefanis, John (May 2007). "Interview: UDO Dirkschneider". Get Ready to Rock.com. Retrieved January 31, 2013.
  6. ↑ "Top Albums/CDs - Volume 42, No. 8, May 04 1985". Library and Archives Canada. May 4, 1985. Retrieved 2014-06-10.
  7. ↑ "Officialcharts.de – Accept – Metal Heart". GfK Entertainment Charts. Retrieved 2014-06-10.
  8. ↑ "Norwegiancharts.com – Accept – Metal Heart". Hung Medien. Retrieved 2014-06-10.
  9. ↑ "Swedishcharts.com – Accept – Metal Heart". Hung Medien. Retrieved 2014-06-10.
  10. ↑ "Swisscharts.com – Accept – Metal Heart". Hung Medien. Retrieved 2014-06-10.
  11. ↑ "Accept | Artist | Official Charts". UK Albums Chart Retrieved 2014-06-10.
  12. ↑ "Accept – Chart history" Billboard 200 for Accept. Retrieved 2014-06-10.
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