AcceptSymphonic Terror: Live At Wacken 2017

German heavy metal legends Accept have levelled up yet again. With the release of Symphonic Terror: Live at Wacken, the sheer scale of Accept’s power and artistry is abundantly apparent.

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A longstanding band, formative in the German trash metal scene that debuted in 1979. Accept are now fifteen studio albums into their illustrious career, with the latest being 2017’s The Rise of Chaos, but this has not deterred them from expanding into ever enlarging creative dimensions. At Wacken Open Air 2017, Accept performed one of their most massive concerts to date, before an eighty thousand strong crowd and accompanied by a symphony orchestra, which has become immortalised as Symphonic Terror: Live At Wacken.

Accept’s set filmed at WOA 2017 is wild, with so much to engage with over an epic run time over twenty one tracks featuring a diverse pickings of Accept material. Launching the set in famous Accept anthem style are a pair of tracks, Die By The Sword [2017] and classic hit Restless And Wild [1982], separated by decades but brought together in a high energy opening.

What really makes Symphonic Terror stand out is the midsection of the set, which features a number of tracks from guitarist Wolf Hoffmann’s solo project, Headbanger’s Symphony.

What really makes Symphonic Terror stand out is the midsection of the set, which features a number of tracks from guitarist Wolf Hoffmann’s solo project, Headbanger’s Symphony. Hoffmann has created stunning metal-esque adaptations of renowned classical pieces that resonated profoundly in the live set at Wacken. The haunting instrumental Night On Bald Mountain granted rocking power and screaming solos to Mussorgsky’s eerily majestic piece. Characteristically playful, the symphonic accompaniment to Scherzo melded perfectly with the thrashy energy of Hoffmann’s guitar. Hoffmann takes to flight in Pathetique, a lead heavy interpretation of Beethoven’s Sonata No. 8 in C Minor often referred to as Sonata Pathetique. Hoffmann’s selection of classical pieces for adaptation is laudable, from Vivaldi’s double cello concerto in G minor, through Mozart’s jovial and triumphant Symphony No. 40 in G Minor, to Romeo And Juliet, a brazen reinterpretation of Prokofiev’s darkly entrancing Dance Of The Knights from the renowned ballet.

The orchestra joins Accept for the final section of the set, which closes with four massive Accept hits, in the same finale as Restless and Live, but this time with symphonic dimensions, to end with an extremely, almost juxtaposed, profound classical-strings-laden edition of Accept’s timeless hit, Balls To the Wall.

STANDOUT TRACKS: Night On Bald Mountain, Romeo And Juliet, Die By The Sword.
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