U.D.O. – Game Over – 2021

I know that Game over is an album by the band U.D.O. but in my mind, this band is nothing else but Udo Dirkschneider doing what pleases him. For me, he and the band at one and the same. Members come and go but he always remains (of course). For long periods of time, the members have stayed the same but still, there is no other constant than Udo himself. I don’t really care. I like him as a vocalist and frontman. This band (or Udo himself) is also a master of putting out good mediocre albums. There’s rarely anything that stands out and the formula to the songs is usually the same. More or less the clichée of metal music to be totally frank. I like it even if it’s usually non-imginative.

Game Over, when I first listened to it was one of the better albums by U.D.O. that I’ve heard in a while. At least the first half or so. I think that Mr. Dirkschneider is a bit more laid back than I’ve heard him before. I admit that I might have missed a couple of albums here and there during the span of 17 studio albums but that’s the nice thing about this band. You always get more or less what you expect. Nothing more and nothing less.

The second half of this more than 60-minute long album gets rather tiresome though. There aren’t enough great melodies. It might be a little late to point it out now that Udo is 69 years old and obviously had a successful career, but maybe it would have been a good idea to slow down and release half as many records and maximize the quality instead of putting out albums so frequently?

Anyway, as I said, you get what you expect and I guess that’s not too bad after all.