''The Rise of Chaos'' is the 15th studio album by German heavy metal band Accept, released on 4 August 2017. This is the first Accept album with guitarist

Uwe Lulis Uwe Lulis (born 6 December 1965) is a German guitarist. He is the key member and producer of heavy metal band Rebellion since 2000 and is currently one of three guitarists of German band Accept. He also played guitar in Grave Digger for about 13 ...

and drummer Christopher Williams, replacing

Herman Frank Herman Frank (born 20 January 1959) is a German heavy metal guitarist best known for his work with Accept and Victory. In 2009, he released his first solo album called ''Loyal to None''. Frank has also recorded with Hazzard, Sinner, Moon'Do ...

and

Stefan Schwarzmann Stefan Schwarzmann (born 11 November 1965Larkin, Colin (2006). ''The Encyclopedia of Popular Music''. Oxford University Press. p. 189. .) is a German drummer who has recorded for Accept,Montgomery, James et al (2005)"Metal File: Korn, Motorhead, ...

, respectively. It is also their final studio album to feature bassist Peter Baltes, who left Accept in November 2018. Like their previous three studio albums, ''The Rise of Chaos'' was produced by

Andy Sneap Andy Sneap (born 18 July 1969) is an English guitarist, record producer and composer with over 100 albums to his name, most of which have been produced at his Backstage Recording studios in rural Derbyshire. Some of the most critically acclaime ...

, making it the band's fourth collaboration with him. Guitarist

Wolf Hoffmann Wolf Hoffmann (born 10 December 1959) is a German musician, primarily known as the guitarist and last remaining original member of heavy metal band Accept since 1976. His work in Accept influenced the development of speed metal genre. He is als ...

has stated that the album's title refers to the human-caused chaos in the world.

Background

About four months after the release of '' Blind Rage'' (2014), it was announced that guitarist

and drummer

had parted ways with Accept. They were later replaced by

and Christopher Williams, respectively. On 5 June 2015, prior to the band's performance at the South Park festival in

Tampere Tampere ( , , ; sv, Tammerfors, ) is a city in the Pirkanmaa region, located in the western part of Finland. Tampere is the most populous inland city in the Nordic countries. It has a population of 244,029; the urban area has a population o ...

Finland Finland ( fi, Suomi ; sv, Finland ), officially the Republic of Finland (; ), is a Nordic country in Northern Europe. It shares land borders with Sweden to the northwest, Norway to the north, and Russia to the east, with the Gulf of B ...

, bassist Peter Baltes told Kaaos TV that Accept planned to begin work on a new album after the conclusion of the ''Blind Rage'' tour. Asked in a July 2015 interview about the band's future, guitarist

replied, "We will continue for a few more weeks, this run of touring, and then we'll take a little break and come back in the fall, but we're pretty much wrapping up the ''Blind Rage'' tour at this point; it's the very last phase of this whole cycle. And then the next album will have to be written and to be recorded, and how long that's gonna take and when that's all gonna happen, who knows? But it'll happen; that's all I know." Hoffmann stated that the new album would be released around July or August 2017. Like their previous three albums, the album was produced by

, making it Accept's fourth collaboration with him. On 16 April 2017 Accept announced that the album, titled ''The Rise of Chaos'', would be released on 4 August. On 2 June the band released title track single digitally via Nuclear Blast accompanied by new artwork.

Critical reception

''The Rise of Chaos'' has received generally positive reviews from critics.

AllMusic AllMusic (previously known as All Music Guide and AMG) is an American online music database. It catalogs more than three million album entries and 30 million tracks, as well as information on musicians and bands. Initiated in 1991, the databa ...

writer James Christopher Monger gave the album a rating of three-and-a-half stars out of five, and wrote, "Internationally, Accept's particular brand of workmanlike metal, a steely mix of muscular AC/DC-styled riffage and Motörhead-esque bad attitude, never truly went out of style, and ''The Rise of Chaos'' plays to those strengths via a ten-track onslaught that shows little in the way of innovation, yet never loses sight of the end goal, which is to rock with extreme prejudice." The album was honored with a 2017

Metal Storm Metal Storm Limited was a research and development company based in Brisbane, Australia, that specialized in electronically initiated superposed load weapons technology and owned the proprietary rights to the electronic ballistics technology ...

Award for Best Heavy Metal/Melodic Album. It was also nominated for a German ''

Metal Hammer ''Metal Hammer'' is a heavy metal music magazine and website founded in 1983, published in the United Kingdom by Future, with other language editions available in numerous other countries. ''Metal Hammer'' features news, reviews and long-form ...

'' Award for Best Album in 2018, but lost to

Powerwolf Powerwolf, often stylized as POWERWOLF, is a German power metal band founded in 2003 in Saarbrücken by members of Red Aim. The band consists of vocalist Karsten Brill as "Attila Dorn", lead guitarist Benjamin Buss as "Matthew Greywolf", bassist/ ...

's ''

The Sacrament of Sin ''The Sacrament of Sin'' is the seventh studio album by German power metal band Powerwolf, released on 20 July 2018 by Napalm Records. The band wrote it during 2017 and began recording it in January 2018 at the Fascination Street Studios in Örebr ...

''.

Track listing

All songs written by

Mark Tornillo Mark Tornillo (born June 8, 1954) is an American singer and songwriter best known for serving as the frontman of heavy metal band Accept. He joined the band officially in May 2009 as Udo Dirkschneider's replacement. He also became the main lyri ...

and Peter Baltes.

Personnel

– vocals *

– guitars *

– guitars * Peter Baltes – bass * Christopher Williams – drums

Charts

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Rise of Chaos 2017 albums Accept (band) albums Nuclear Blast albums