Band:	Accept
Album:	Eat The Heat
Style:	Heavy metal
Release date:	May 1989

01. X-T-C
02. Generation Clash
03. Chain Reaction
04. Love Sensation
05. Turn The Wheel
06. Hellhammer
07. Prisoner
08. I Can't Believe In You [CD bonus]
09. Mistreated
10. Stand 4 What U R
11. Break The Ice [CD bonus]
12. D-Train

Eat The Heat is notable (or ignominious) for two particular details: it is the first Accept album without Udo Dirkschneider in the captain's chair, and it sports one of the most horrendously uncomfortable album covers in metal history.

Sure, worse crimes have been committed, but nothing more clearly spells disaster than an album cover that says, "Hey, this is Skid Row coming to you live from rehab!" As the portrait of five grown and fully unconvinced men about to awkwardly debauch something indicates, Accept finally gave way to some of the engulfing trends of the late '80s and produced their own version of pop metal. People who have a very poor grasp on heavy metal, i.e. most people who don't listen to it, often conflate this entire decade's rock/metal output into one ill-defined scene, where every band that was even remotely heavy between the years 1980 and 1989 looked like Poison, sounded like Mötley Crüe, and sang about Satan, whether they were Judas Priest, Alice Cooper, Bon Jovi, AC/DC, Foreigner, Mr. Big, Megadeth, or Van Halen. Accept took the initiative and conflated themselves.

While they had edged towards the more mainstream approach on the two previous albums, Eat The Heat goes for the gusto, with big, wail-y choruses, nonsense lyrics, and some riffs that frankly want inspiration. Despite this questionable stylistic turnaround, Eat The Heat is surprisingly decent, for what it is. Accept was just past their prime, and I don't think I'm the only one who sees no need for a nine-minute hair metal song, but even if they executed them improperly the band still had some not-so-dodgy ideas lurking in the attic. Perhaps holdovers from the past sessions, perhaps a stroke of luck, but tracks like "Love Sensation" and "Prisoner" demonstrate that even in one of their darkest hours Accept could make something listenable.

Given the universal difficulties of trying to replace a lead singer, especially one so distinctive as Udo Dirkschneider and in a band so acclaimed as Accept, it might seem logical to pin the blame on David Reece for Eat The Heat's lukewarm reception. David Reece would be entirely the wrong person to blame, in fact. Certainly he was no Udo, but he had a powerful and recognizable voice of his own - like a combination of Udo and Metal Church's Mike Howe. It's almost a shame he didn't do more albums with Accept, in fact. The rest of the band, for their part, while going out of their way to achieve a different sound than usual, still take it seriously enough to rescue some of these songs from the jaws of defeat.

After eliminating the potential reasons that might explain why this was a bad album (the material, the singer, the performance), we're left to consider that Eat The Heat was not actually a bad album. Few would ever accuse it of being a high point in Accept's career, but it's surprisingly passable for a low point. Perhaps it is for the best that it was so poorly-received, for Udo would soon return for two more albums - after which, as we all know, Accept went into hibernation until their staggering set of 21st-century reunion albums.