Pound for pound, it’s arguable that German legend Udo Dirkschneider has been involved in more classic, no-frills heavy metal in his forty-odd year career than any other human on the planet. As a member of Accept, U.D.O. and it’s offshoots Dirkschneider and Dirkschneider and the Old Gang (not to mention this year’s solo covers album My Way), he’s been a literal metal factory for as long as me or you have been incorrigibly in love with the genre.

On The Legacy, Udo the man celebrates thirty five years of U.D.O. the band with a sprawling, double CD/quadruple vinyl extravaganza that investigates every corner of the band’s fecund album-producing career. At thirty three tracks, including four rare offerings that even Udo’s Mum won’t have heard, it’s a fitting tribute to one of metal’s most solid bodies of work.

Of course, there’s not a hope in hell that all your favourites will be included – Rev-Raptor from 2011’s album of the same name and A Bite of Evil from 2018’s Steelfactory would be my personal glaring omissions –  but it’s an undeniable joy to be able to revisit classic bangers like Metal Eater from 1991’s Timebomb or the roaring Like A Lion (Man and Machine, 2002).

And then of course there are the stylistic oddities; It’s hard to see, especially after the riff-heavy nature of the man’s late-career renaissance, Udo being involved with something like the keyboard-flecked Future Land, which actually has a hint of Def Leppard about it, but that was what melodic metal fans expected in 1990 when the track’s parent album, Faceless World, emerged. Similarly, Blitz of Lightning, from the same album, could easily have slid into the tracklisting of Accept ‘failure’ album of the time, Eat The Heat, such is it’s lightness of touch.

And what of the bonus tracks? I’m generally of the opinion that unreleased product is usually unreleased for good reason; However Udo Dirkschneider is one of the most consistent providers of metal known to man, and here we can see that the tracks on offer are for the most part simply good tracks that didn’t make the cut on great albums. The exception is Dust and Rust, an English-language version of Basta Ya from 2013’s Steelhammer which die hard fans will absolutely want to add to their collection.

If you’ve been with U.D.O. from the beginning, there are absolutely no surprises here; It is, however, nice to have a carefully-curated trip through the band’s history all in one place. But if you’re new to the man, or only know him through Accept, then this is a must-have compendium of proper, no-holds-barred heavy metal from a master of the craft.

The Legacy releases on November 25th.