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UDO DIRKSCHNEIDER
My Way
Atomic Fire 2022

UDO DIRKSCHNEIDER is a metal legend, I don’t need to tell KANC.COM readers this, but it needs to be acknowledged. His time in ACCEPT produced a couple of MTV staples in the 80s with “Balls To The Wall” and the ultra-melodic and seizure-inducing clip for “Midnight Mover”. Udo is set to turn the big 7-0 on April 6th, 2022. His new studio album, My Way is a collection of covers to commemorate the milestone. When artists release cover albums they are often a mixed bag or a huge miss. One ‘miss’ that I’m still trying to get past is SCORPIONS’ covers on the Comeblack album. Yes, I know not all were covers, only half the album, the other half were re-recorded tracks. Still, those covers weren’t very good, and they didn’t really fit within the confines of what the SCORPIONS were all about. So how did their fellow countrymen fair? Well, better…

There are some grand slams on My Way and they are; “Man On The Silver Mountain” [RAINBOW], “Hell Raiser” [THE SWEET], “No Class” [MOTORHEAD], “Rock And Roll” [LED ZEPPELIN], “The Stroke” [BILLY SQUIER], “Paint It Black” [THE ROLLING STONES], “He’s A Woman, She’s A Man" [SCORPIONS], appropriate timing given the recent current events, “T.N.T.” [AC/DC], “Hell Bent For Leather” [JUDAS PRIEST], and “We Will Rock You” [QUEEN]. These are simply stellar renditions, filtered through Udo’s gravelly, tobacco laced, potent bark. Udo dug deep with the tracks; “Faith Healer”> [Alex Harvey], “Fire” [CRAZY WORLD OF ARTHUR BROWN], “Sympathy” [URIAH HEEP], “Nutbush City Limits” [TINA TURNER]. North American audiences won’t be familiar with “Kein Zurück” by WOLFSHEIM, it’s sung in German. I checked out the original rendition of the gothic, synth and Udo added some crunch to his version. I could have lived without it on the record, frankly as it just doesn’t fit with the flow of the album. Another artist that isn’t a household name in the states is FRANKIE MILLER. Udo tackles “Jealousy”, which slows the pace some. It’s a good song, but I could have lived without it. My Way closes out with the FRANK SINATRA staple “My Way”. The cover was previously featured on the DIRKSCHNEIDER Live - Back To The Roots - Accepted! Album issued in 2017. The song closed out the double live album and it closes out this 17-track collection of covers.

In a recent interview Udo stated that “he took care with each of the cover songs”. One thing is for sure, he tried to do the covers in his way and realized the vision. I don’t have to tell you that Udo can’t sing like RONNIE JAMES DIO, KLAUS MEINE, FREDDIE MERCURY, ROB HALFORD or ROBERT PLANT. He ‘Udo-ized’ the songs and in some cases, he made some slight changes to their arrangements, and it worked…incredibly well!

4.0 Out Of 5.0