Review Summary: A botched threesome.
For all Udo Dirkschneider’s reputation of making more of the same music with every album, it would actually be wrong to say that he is unable to branch out and try something new. Otherwise, we wouldn’t have had songs like “Devil’s Rendezvous” or “Mystery,” or even Accept’s “Teach Us to Survive”, all completely out of left field for Udo. The problem becomes apparent when he tries to scale up his innovations from one song to a whole LP. Then, we normally get just a regular U.D.O album with a gimmick. For instance, such is the case of Udo’s collaboration with the Bundeswehr orchestra, “We Are One,” which turned out to be just that: a batch of typical U.D.O songs, just with an orchestra instead of electric guitars.
This time, the gimmick and the justification for releasing an album under a new name instead of the usual U.D.O moniker is the presence of two additional singers. Manuela Biebert comes back to the fold after cooperating with Udo on ”We Ae One,” while his old partner in crime Peter Baltes finally returns to singing in addition to handling the bassist’s duties. Peter’s presence behind the microphone is the main reason why I was mildly excited about the whole project. I love the ballads “Seawinds” and “The King” sang by Baltes on the first two Accept albums, and “Predator,” the final Accept album with Udo, will always hold a special place in my heart partly because on that album Peter finally got a chance to sing on some heavier material.
And you know, the beginnings were actually quite promising! The aperitif EP “Arising” released back in 2021 is an example of skillful combination of three different voices for the benefit of the music. My favorite is “Every Heart is Burning,” where Udo sings the first couple of lines, after which the two other singers join him in succession, and then the three voices blend together in the chorus. Oh, and the best part of the song is its uplifting bridge where Manuela gets to flex her vocal cords on her own. The other two songs are just as good, providing a fresh take on old-school music without overstaying their welcome, and there’s a clear sense of connection present between the three singers.
Alas, for the full-length album Udo decided to tighten the reins. His vocals dominate most of the songs with the two partners being pushed into the background more often than not. Manuela gets a little more room to breathe, and although there are songs where she barely delivers two or three lines, in some other cases she operates almost on equal terms with Udo, and more importantly, her skills are actually applied to improve and enrich the songs. The Eastern-tinged title track particularly benefits from her tender vocalizations, and there’s no way in hell Mr. Dirkschneider could ever pull off the supremely catchy pre-chorus to “Dead Man’s Hand” on his own. Manuela even gets a full song to sing the lead on, but the catch is that it’s not even a new one, just a re-recording of “Blindfold” from “We Are One” (which is super lazy, dear Udo!). As for Peter Baltes, unfortunately he is relegated almost exclusively to back vocals for the entire album. Only in three cases he gets a few lines to sing: the ballad “Strangers in Paradise,” the anthemic “Metal Sons,” and the closer “Beyond the End of Time.” Even in these cases it feels just like a token involvement. Otherwise, you might even forget that the guy is there at all.
You must have noticed by now that I keep rambling about the vocals for the entire review, while barely mentioning the music at all. That’s because outside of the three singers gimmick this is a fairly typical set of U.D.O / Accept songs, and if you ever heard one album from them, you know what to expect here. From the energetic opener “It Takes Two to Tango” to an attempt on something more epic in the closing track, this is typical Udo material. The one significant difference is perhaps that the presence of clean singers inspired the band to go in more melodic direction, so the songs here are faster and airier on average in comparison to the weighty grinding sound of U.D.O.’s last few releases. Which is the main reason why “Babylon” is still a fun and engaging listen for fans of old-school heavy metal. At the same time, I think that twelve songs is a bit too much for an album like that, and it would be wiser to limit the output to 9-10 tracks. And of course, a more varied and cooperative approach to the vocals would’ve done the LP a huge service. Unfortunately, while the EP conjured the image of three people walking hand in hand as equals, what we see here is two people carrying the third one on their shoulders.
So, what is the moral of this story, folks? Probably that “menage a trois” works better as a one-off experiment meant to bring some diversity in your sexual life, while adopting it as a permanent arrangement may prove problematic, especially if one side of the triangle tends to dominate and suppress the other two. Proceed with caution!
