Album Review: UDO - We Are One

There are some figures in music who achieve legendary status, and for the life of me I can't figure out how it happened. Ozzy is always at the top of that list, but I do sort of understand it, since Black Sabbath was something no one had ever heard before, so Ozzy was the only voice you could hear singing such music. He won through sheer luck. What I have less an understanding of is just how in the blue hell Udo Dirkshneider ever became a huge figure in European metal. The man's voice is a warbling mess, and he didn't even have an image to fall back on. If he was starting out today, he would get laughed off the stage, and yet he continues to solider on as a beloved artist. I just don't get it.

This album might be his most laughable one yet, as he teams up with Das Musikkorps Der Bundeswehr, meaning this is a fully orchestrated attempting to be something epic and grand. Those words are incompatible with Udo's voice, at least as far as I'm concerned.

Everything about this record hinges on Udo. If by some happenstance you don't think his voice sounds like the gurgling sound made by victims who have had their throats slashed in horror movies, then you might actually like this. As for me, I would rather listen to my own voice than Udo's, and since everyone hates their own, is there anything worse I can say?

He always sounds ridiculous, but even more than usual with orchestral backdrops and angelic backing vocals highlighting how ill-suited he is to this particular task. This music requires a voice that fits in with a more classical setting, and Udo isn't just the proverbial fish out of water, he's like trying to get a sun-tan in the middle of the night. He's ok in the few moments where everyone is trying to chant a simple message, but everywhere else on the record he is simply outclassed and over-matched.

The other issue with the record is that it's just too damn long. With fifteen songs here, it's too much music to take in, especially with as epic as it's trying to sound. Getting blasted in the face by a metal band and an army band at the same time for an entire hour is asking a lot of the listeners. Maybe it would be worth enduring all of this if the songs were great, but they are held back by the album's conceit. Udo is not a melodic singer to begin with, but turning over half of the work to the non-metal instruments robs us even of the simple riffs that normally let us pump our fists. By trying to sound so big, the music actually sounds smaller.

I suppose I give Udo some credit for trying to do something outside his comfort zone, but that's about all I can say. It's ambitious, but that ambition doesn't pay off with great songs or great performances. This might have been salvaged by a better singer, but Udo is the wrong man to make this worth listening to. He wants this album to be something meaningful and serious, but he sounds like a cartoon character. I can't take it seriously with him singing, and that pretty much means it never had a chance to succeed.