German heavy metal Godfather Udo Dirkschneider is here to rock your ass.

This isn’t a supposition on my part, you understand, rather a promise made by the man himself early on in stomping mid-album bruiser Marching Tank. And I’m happy to tell you he doesn’t renege on that undertaking on any part of this new album…

… Actually he does, when he adopts his now-familiar Udo-croon on bonus track Don’t Wanna Say Goodbye; however even this tear-jerking, late night slab of dewy-eyed reverie is pure class and entirely what you’ve now come to expect from a man who has spent forty-odd years writing and refining the heavy metal rule book to his own liking. If Udo wants this sort of stuff on his seventeenth album under the U.D.O. banner then that’s mighty fine with me – you can always fast forward to more strident material should you be so minded.

And my word there’s plenty of strident material to enjoy on Game Over. Thunder Road is pure, ripsnorting Dirkschneider-approved mayhem, as are the aforementioned Marching Tank and bellicose, belligerent standout cut Metal Never Dies. Then you’ve got classic pop metal a la his former band Accept in the form of Midnight Stranger and recently released single Kids and Guns. Whatever the style, whatever your trad metal preference,  Herr Dirkschneider has it covered with that familiar and much-loved wounded bulldog snarl; it’s such a comfortable sound in 2021 it almost borders on easy listening music for heavy metal fans, but that isn’t to diminish in any way the class and craft involved in churning this schtick out over a period of almost half a century. When Udo claims that metal will never die you know he means it, and you know that our kind of music is in safe hands for as long as he holds on to the flame. In these troubled times that is a strangely comforting fact to hold on to…

Guitarists Andrey Smirnov and Fabian Dee Dammers are solidly dependable throughout, doing just what’s required to set the scene for the main man; they don’t steal the scene at any point, though the guitar work on one of the other bonus tracks, Time Control, is easily as good as anything on this year’s Accept album – whilst Dirkschneider’s son Sven again acquits himself well behind the kit, keeping the rhythm section nicely stoked with bassist Tilen Hudrap; But, as the final notes of closing track Metal Damnation drift off into ether, it’s not those guys you’ll be thanking for a lifetime’s dedication to our cause…

Game Over releases on October 8th.