Accept

When German trad/power metal kings Accept reunited for 2010's Blood of the Nations, fans were pleasantly surprised across the board, as the album was solid, enjoyable, and new vocalist Mark Tornillo delivered the goods in such a classy fashion that we all kind of forgot about our fave mini-man/ex-Accept vocalist, Udo Dirkschneider, for a while, which is no small feat. Now, with Stalingrad, the band have quickly delivered another excellent album that brings back some of their speed (see opener "Hung, Drawn and Quartered"), as well as the usual anthemic Accept fare ("Revolution"). And, get this, that always-tough-slog mid-tempo stuff? It actually sounds pretty good this time around (check out "Shadow Soldiers"). As usual, some of the songs go on for a couple minutes too long, and the 51-minute album gets a bit tiring after 40. But, man, they're on a roll, creating amazingly solid metal the likes of which bands both young and old would kill to pump out with this much consistency. And, believe me, Accept fans, I'm trying to make some kind of Russian Roulette joke, but it's just not happening.