I wasn’t planning on writing today. I had made a decision to cut back a bit due to work and general world-in-flames anxiety. But then it was 5:30am, the third time I had gotten up in the night, and I knew I wasn’t falling back asleep. I thought about what album to listen to there it was: a butch, hairy thigh. A gnarled, vein-popped hand holding a ball. Udo called, and I replied. And so despite only coming around to Accept in my 40s, Balls To The Wall became a fast, fun pleasure in a way it never did when I heard then band and that song as a kid.

In one way Accept to me are in the same category as Judas Priest: there is no sub-genre, no small niche to put them in. They are Heavy Metal, embodying the leather-clad vibe in a way few bands could, unless you were there where it was exploding. Balls To The Wall was the album that really broke them here in the US; it’s incredible to think that this was their fifth album. I know a lot of people prefer Restless And Wild to this, it being the faster and more speed-influenced album, but in truth I like the more measured, tough songwriting and clearer production here. The riff that opens the title track and the album as a whole is one of those all-timers, just precise power chords and palm-muting bringing everything I loved about the 80s scene alive.

And while the band probably wouldn’t like to hear it now after decades of strife and fighting, of COURSE the real draw, the first thing you really notice about the band is Udo Dirkschneider’s unique vocal delivery. No one sound like him, and while we can talk about how perfect Wolf Hoffmann’s lead work is (and it is, his tone is phenomenal, his playing fluid and technical without being shreddy), how great the bass and drums sound locked in. But Udo brings something I hadn’t heard since Bon Scott: this snarling, funny and furious tone to every line he spits out. I’m listening again now and the line “Let’s plug a bomb in everyone’s ass” is so perfect no one else could really pull that off – except maybe Scott, a few years gone at this point, may he rest in peace.

Taking the nonsensical controversy of the album cover (The only thing I’d argue is they clearly saw Maplethorpe’s “Patrice N.Y.C. 1977” and ripped it off) away, the rest of Balls To The Wall is a treasure of fun riffs and attacks. “London Leatherboys” is another catchy hook-filled song that is obviously about the London biker scene, and “Fight It Back” has terrific guitar work that recalls classic Priest to me. Self-produced, the album sounds amazing, with plenty of Pete Baltes’s bass present in the mix, and Stefan Kaufmann’s drums sounds large and alive. But like so many bands of the day, the appeal and the longevity lie in those riffs, and that vocal attack. And while Accept would go onto more radio friendly rock in Metal Heart and rewind again on 1986’s Russian Roulette, the band’s crowning achievement to my ears is Balls To The Wall, a perfect album for the time whose charms took too long to attach themselves to me.