Band Site: http://www.hermanfrank.com

This LP sounds like what Accept should've released instead of “The Rise of Chaos”. Seriously, this is the much better Accept record that didn't get made as Accept!

Knowing Frank's history as a sideman to Wolf Hoffmann in Accept, it is a big surprise that the riffs on here and the leads are just as if not more proficient than what we're used to hearing from Wolf's Teutonic war machine. The writing style and sound is also similar to modern day Accept.

The production values on this album are superb, and by the looks of it, engineered and produced mainly by Frank. Frank delivers precision lead after lead, amazing guitar harmonies, and it all sounds so effortless and so good that one wonders why he wasn't given more room for stretching his fingers in Accept.

The vocals can't be any better than the performance of Rick Altzi (currently also singer in Masterplan). The man's pipes destroys any comparisons to Accept and leaves both Udo and Mark Tornillo in the dust. Rick has the right amount of edge and amazing sense of melody.

The rest of the gang, Michael Müller (bass), André Hilgers (drums), Heiko Schröder (guitars) delivers solid performances. I'd have appreciated to hear a bit more variety on the drums and bass, drums seem to get into this modern German power metal double bass thing that seems to be a bit overdone these days, while the bass guitar basically delivers a meat and potatoes performance.

Overall Herman Frank managed to put out a fiery, gutsy and very melodic heavy metal / power metal album. Definitely worth checking out, this will be in my playlist for quite some time!

Reviewed by A. Dorian