A German heavy metal outfit founded and fronted by powerhouse vocalist
Udo Dirkschneider,
U.D.O. emerged in the late '80s after
Dirkschneider exited the popular power metal group
Accept. Beginning with 1987's Animal House,
Dirkschneider and a rotating cast of players carved out a huge swath of heavy metal real estate, averaging a full-length LP every year or so (2021's
Game Over was the group's 17th full-length effort) and touring on the strength of an impressive catalog of European power metal that also included
Accept classics like "Balls to the Wall" and "Fast as a Shark."
Following his departure from
Accept in 1987,
Dirkschneider formed
U.D.O. with guitarists Peter Szigeti and Mathias Dieth, bassist Frank Rittel, and drummer Tomas Franke. The group's debut album, Animal House, was in fact written by
Dirkschneider's former bandmates in
Accept, and by the time of its 1988 follow-up
Mean Machine, Szigeti, Rittel, and
Franke had all been dismissed, replaced by guitarist
Andy Susemihl, bassist
Thomas Smuszynski, and drummer
Stefan Schwarzmann.
Susemihl himself was out of
U.D.O. for 1990's
Faceless World, replaced by guitarist Wolla Böhm; the same roster who recorded 1991's
Time Bomb, although the band split in the wake of a subsequent tour, with
Dirkschneider rejoining
Accept from 1992 to 1996. He re-formed
U.D.O. with Dieth,
Schwarzmann, guitarist
Stefan Kaufmann, and bassist
Michael Voss to contribute a track to the
Judas Priest tribute album Legends of Metal; only
Schwarzmann and
Kaufmann remained on board for 1997's full-length
Solid, which featured new guitarist
Jürgen Graf-Biardi and bassist
Fitty Wienhold.
No Limits followed a year later, and in 1999
U.D.O. resurfaced with the punishing
Holy, which saw the group delivering their most visceral LP in years. 2002's
Man and Machine featured the hit "Dancing with an Angel," a duet with
Warlock vocalist
Doro Pesch, and was followed by a string of hard-hitting studio albums:
Thunderball (2004),
Mission No. X (2005),
Mastercutor (2007), Dominator (2009), and
Rev-Raptor (2011). The following year saw the departure of guitarist
Stefan Kaufmann, who had to leave the fold for health reasons. He was replaced by
Andrey Smirnov, who made his first studio appearance with the group on 2013's
Steelhammer.
Decadent, the band's 15th long-player, arrived in a timely fashion in early 2015. Later that year,
Dirkschneider announced that he would be embarking on a massive tour comprising only
Accept songs, with the intention of retiring the material. A double-live LP, Back to the Roots: Accepted, chronicled the tour in 2017.
U.D.O. returned with their 16th studio long-player Steelfactory in 2018. Two years later they released the follow-up
We Are One, an orchestral album written and recorded in collaboration with the
Concert Band of the German Armed Forces, followed in 2021 by
Game Over. ~ Jason Ankeny