Scorpions
Return to Forever
FIRST, THE HISTORY
The Scorpions are an old band. I mean, they are celebrating more than 50 years together as a unit. Very few bands share that distinction and this one certainly deserves its due. Unlike the Rolling Stones or The Who, this band rocks hard in an almost violent way that puts them on equal par with Led Zeppelin in terms of greatness and raw heavy metal power – and they’re still making music and haven’t lost a step live.
This five-piece from Hanover, Germany, has been through two major phases where its DNA changed drastically. The first phase started with its second album (Fly to the Rainbow) in 1974, with the addition of replacement guitarist Uli Jon Roth. His flair for the mighty tone and controlled feedback of Hendrix overshadowed the band in many ways, which was a good thing considering his talent. This was preceded by nine years of early gigging as a beat rock band and the 1972 release of Lonesome Crow, which isn’t that great (to put it kindly). And thank goodness that early incarnation with Rudolf Schenker and long-gone mates never recorded anything that stuck around, because it probably would not add any luster to the Scorpions shining catalog.
I first discovered the Scorpions when a girl named Cathy Counts brought the Tokyo Tapes double live record album into our woodshop class, which had a turntable that we could spin music on while we chiseled, sawed and shaped our wooden projects. She was a rebel, wore her shoulder-length hair with a rockin’ tease and wasn’t afraid to dress the part of girl rocker. She wasn’t the leader of the pack, but she had rock and roll cred and true rebel attitude. Then I heard the music rising above the woodshop din and knew it was a good introduction to something new. I was immediately transfixed by the image on the front cover of a maniacal guitarist bent over backward with a black and white zebra striped shirt pitted against the all-black stage and dark lighting. This was aggressive, new music performed live that showed a nice 4-album catalog of material (Fly to the Rainbow, Virgin Killer, In Trance and Taken By Force). It had the high-energy edge of Van Halen and some uber-melodic vocals not heard anywhere else. It was bold, original and defiant in a palatable way.
This was a discovery that I kept mining for years, picking up Virgin Killer, then latching on to Lovedrive. The departure of Uli Roth and the addition of Matthias Jabs marked a new era for the band. Incidentally,for that Lovedrive album, Michael Schenker rejoined his brother Rudolph in the band that he left five year’s previously for British touring mates UFO, who offered him the chance to jump ship and make some great music with another great hard rock band. In spite of the drastic changes, the Scorpions actually gained momentum during this transition and honed into the sound that would dominate both the Eastern and Western hemispheres just a few short years later.
The guitar tones got brighter, the music got faster and the lyrics got sexier. They were hungry for what they wanted – worldwide domination – and they sounded the part – scrappy, fast and aggressive, yet with a melodic sensibility that would pull females into this male-dominated world of metal. They opened for Ted Nugent in the USA, who was no slouch on the live stage in 1979, and proved that it wouldn’t be long before no one could follow their take-no-prisoners live assault.
Many cite the Blackout album of 1982 as some sort of benchmark release and, while I like the song “No One Like You” quite a bit, that album is just filled with, shall we say, “filler” material. I mean, songs like “China White,” “Dynamite,” “Arizona” and even the title track make me look back and yawn at best or throw up a little bit in my mouth at least. No, the band’s benchmark moment for me is 1980’s Animal Magnetism. Matthias Jabs seemingly found his guitar tone and never looked back. The dude doesn’t get the respect he deserves. He plays with feeling. He’s creative, inventive and talented. His fingers can sing like a girl (and I mean that as a compliment). Animal Magnetism is solid from beginning to end and doesn’t get old, featuring perhaps the band’s heaviest and most endearing live track to this day – “The Zoo.”
But Blackout gave the band a hit video on MTV. “No One Like You” started off with climbing twin harmony guitars that cut through the air with clarity. Vocalist Klaus Meine acted the part of an Alcatraz prisoner that was to be executed after receiving a visit from his knockout brunette love interest. Add one iconic visual of Rudolf Schenker wrapped in bandages with forks sticking into his eye sockets, and the Scorpions left an indelible impression on the MTV-watching world. And the band hadn’t even peaked yet.
I left the Scorpions behind in 1983 due to my newly re-embraced religious convictions. I was glad that one of my old favorite bands was now finally taking over the world, but I couldn’t stomach the lyrics of their biggest hit – “Rock You Like A Hurricane,” which took their naughty penchant of being sexually graphic up a notch. This was first seen on “He’s A Woman, She’s A Man” and “Another Piece of Meat,” but got a little raunchier with (pardon me): “…bitch is hungry / feed her inches…” My newfound religious faith desired something more, shall we say, edifying and encouraging in my pursuit of pleasing God over myself. So, while I stayed very aware of the Scorpions and their music, I wasn’t buying their albums and listening to them non-stop. I didn’t even buy their second double-live album, World Wide Live, which certainly capture them in their new incarnation’s prime.
History was kind to the Scorpions. Or, I should really say that the Scorpions have been kind to history. They are the one band that is forever associated with the fall of the Berlin Wall and the fall of Communism. Their whistling hit, “Wind of Change,” was basically the worldwide soundtrack to this great fall. Talk about being in the right place at the right time! It was simply the honest reflections of a songwriter as he recalled his experience at the Moscow Music Peace Festival, which saw them playing to 260,000 (and that wasn’t even the biggest crowd they’ve played for!).
I kind of tuned out on the Scorpions for the next several years, instead focusing my energy on all the Christian metal bands I was covering for Heaven’s Metal Magazine from ’85 to ’95 and then transitioning the change from Heaven’s Metal (Your Hard Music Authority) to HM (The Hard Music Magazine). I barely paid attention to Savage Amusement (1988), Crazy World (1990), Face the Heat (1993), Live Bites (whose cover of “In Trance” from the previous Uli-era definitely got my attention), Pure Instinct (1996), Eye to Eye (1999), Moment of Glory, which found the band acknowledging its lost relevance to a fickle music world that had moved on from melodic metal, replete with its illustration of a dinosaur on the cover (2000) and Acoustica (2001) – all of which seemed to show the band adapting to its surroundings. You’d probably be hard pressed to find anyone to say that their best work occurred between 1993 and 2003. That’s six albums I’m still basically content to ignore.
Then came the unexpected album that broke the trend of adapting to its current musical climate. A breathtaking aggressive melodic metal album called Unbreakable (2004) showed the band being true to its identity. It sounded like it could have been the follow-up to Blackout or Love at First Sting. No one seemed to notice at this point in time as they unleashed an album full of songs that simply showed the band at their best, being who they are with no apologies. Save for a couple of odd tracks (“New Generation” and “Borderline”), it’s a near-perfect, classic album. Somehow they were able to outdo that high mark with its followup, Humanity Hour 1 (2007), which at face value appeared to be a concept album about a future with technology and robots ruling over the human race, but instead was one giant breakup album that girls everywhere would do well to thank their lucky stars that these songs weren’t written about them. It stings with a biting venom that’s part romance, part broken heart and part bitterness. Again, it finds the band being great at being themselves. You’ve gotta hear this album. Put it on your bucketlist or even this week’s albums-to-get-now list.
It sucks that these two albums didn’t wake up the entire world to its greatness, as apparently sales did not go well. It really sucks that the follow-up, Sting in the Tail, sucked. I’m sorry, but coming on the heals of perfection, this was like ten giant steps back to the mediocrity of the band’s lost decade. Maybe I’ll give it another chance some day…
Comeblack (2011) saw them re-recording their hits, possibly trying to get the attention of radio, who only seems interested in playing the back catalog of classic rock bands and not ever playing anything new from an old artist. A real catch-22 that the Scorpions and its peers still find themselves in. MTV Unplugged in Athens was, as it sounds, a live acoustic set filled with hits, also including “Dancing with the Moonlight” and “Rock ‘n’ Roll Band,” both of which appear on this new album.
NOW, THE REVIEW
And that, if you’re still reading, brings us to this new album. The first listen confirmed my fears that this one wasn’t going to be one of the greats, and I was disappointed. Subsequent listens, however, have grown on me.
The band explains that this album was conceived with the idea “to revisit their past, recording updated outtakes and unfinished song ideas from their most famous 80’s sessions.” Mathias Jabs explains, “There had been quite a few unused songs over the years that were really good, but in the end didn’t make the cut back then due to the limited space on vinyl. We focused on eight songs, which were partly finished, which we then recorded from scratch. During the work, new song ideas were added. We were having so much fun we suddenly found ourselves in the middle of the songwriting process once again. And in the end, it turned out to be a brand-new Scorpions album after all.”
While the overall impact doesn’t sound like a bunch of throwaway b-sides put together to cash in on a rabid fanbase, it does suffer a little bit from its scattered musical directions. I believe the majority of these songs were passed over for a reason way back when and the passage of time and a fresh coat of music doesn’t overcome what’s not really there. Is there a hit? Perhaps. The first single, “We Built This House,” is signature Scorpions and is good, but it’s probably not the best tune on the album. That might be the blistery “Rock My Car,” the smoky, bluesy “House of Cards” or the nostalgic ballad “Gypsy Life” that closes the album (before 7 bonus tracks appear or do not appear, depending upon which release you buy).
“Going Out With A Bang” starts off the album with a Southern rock riff that’s anything but the Scorpions. It’s very alien to the guitar tones of Rudolf Schenker and Matthias Jabs. “This can’t be the Scorpions!” But the opening riff gives way to a chorus and we hear the Scorpions playing basically true to their formula. Not bad, but forgettable. “We Built This House” quickly brings Klaus Meine’s soft and seductive voice to the forefront. His singing is somewhere between storytelling talking and pouting. He’s one of the golden voices of rock. He’s a lucky guy. He was blessed with a signature voice. The song sounds a bit laid-back and formulaic, but the individual parts that make up the Scorpions are so good that they could release an album of fart noises and somehow make it sound better than half their peers.
“Rock My Car” and “All for One” are standout tracks, finding the band at full tilt, playing like they want to knock the audience onto their backs with its sonic attack. Like “Blood Too Hot” from Unbreakable, Klaus and his mates find a way to repeat the phrase, “Rock, rock, rock…” to addictive and tasty results. As a songwriter, it hearkens back to the automobile fixation that “Lovedrive” hinted at. It also name drops a staple song from its catalog, “Big City Nights.” It’s a serious rock out workout that’ll leave you breathing heavier after the track ends. It should’ve been the lead-off track, in my opinion, with the melodic “House of Cards” adding a little slowed-down dynamics just afterwards. The vocals sing beautifully and melodically, and the lead guitars (which I assume are Matthias Jabs’) sing like a tender voice. There’s also some lyrics a little deeper than most:
“Sometimes I hear the echoes of laughter / In the twilight of affairs and other tragedies …
She had the look, but no morality / Sometimes it’s easy to forget only for a moment / But there are nights you regret eternally / Whatever frozen hearts can do / Will melt the ice away…”
It would appear as if Klaus Meine has tasted the bitter waters of suffering.
“How (can) you know what it’s like / when good luck has changed the sides / and no sun shines in the dark / and no angels ever hear your prayers in the night / When your fears come up your spine / When your life turns upside down / it breaks your heart / when you get crushed in the house of cards.”
This is the album’s sweet spot. “All For One” comes on next with a big shouting gangland instrumental buildup before Klaus fires his opening lines like opening salvos in a defiant declaration of aim:
“The weekend comes around / the gang is back in town / we love Saturdays / we love Saturdays / another drink to slam / the girls wham bang / the band starts to play / the band starts to play…”
These three songs show the band fully warmed up and having their way. It’s a good place for the repeat button, and that’s a good thing (the opposite of “skip”). I’m loving these tunes.
“Rock and Roll Band” riffs along like classic Deep Purple (“Highway Star,” perhaps?). “Catch Your Luck and Play” romps like a pop metal anthem with a great Guns N’ Roses type intro riff and then a call-and-response chorus that’s more fun and games (a little Twisted Sister?) than the band’s more favorable aggressive side. “Rollin’ Home” is a feel-good anthem, not too unlike the nostalgia of Unbreakable’s “Remember the Good Times.” The production of the background vocals and their separation from the drums while everything else drops out sounds ever so slightly like what one might hear on the radio recently (“Radioactive” by Imagine Dragons or “Pumped Up Kicks” by Foster the People) without actually sounding contrived, believe it or not. It sounds pretty good. Different, but again, the parts here are so great, it’s hard for the band to go bad.
“Hard Rockin’ the Place,” in my opinion, goes neck deep into that bad territory, however. Someone please tell the band not to use the distorted talk-box (like Sting in the Tail’s title track) – like, ever again. It sounds great in “The Zoo” and “Can You Feel It” (Unbreakable), because it’s not overly distorted. The next tune, “Eye of the Storm,” doesn’t really pull the album out of trouble, either. It’s a ballad – the uber-soft kind with soft picking up in the mix with soft vocals. The only way to enjoy this one is to mock it with a bic lighter up in the air. Granted, the chorus rescues the song, bringing in a strong melody… Not a bad tune, but definitely a hair metal ballad if there ever was one. Track this one back-to-back with Motley Crue’s “Home Sweet Home.”
“The Scratch” is an up-tempo blues burner not unlike what you might expect on a Joe Satriani album or a Broadway musical number about a seedy detective in a dark city. This one probably shows the roots of these aged rockers. It’s a little fun, but this is a side I’d prefer not to hear too often.
“Gypsy Life” carries some of that signature Scorpions heavy/hard to light/soft dynamics like the part in “Still Loving You” or “Maybe I Maybe You” where there’s a pregnant rest that gets shattered by some ultra powerful high notes that come belting out of the singer’s lungs. Again, play this one back-to-back against the Crue’s “Home Sweet Home” and you’ll find a matching companion.
“The World We Used to Know” starts off with a plodding pop chugga-chug that could’ve been lifted from a ‘Til Tuesday album from the ‘80s, except instead of a female voice, Klaus Meine chimes in. This is even more strange than the Southern rock guitar riff that opens the album. Does it belong here? Well, it’s a bonus track, so maybe you’ll hear it, maybe you won’t.
Lyrically, it sounds like it could’ve been the thematic “What now? How do we then live” follow-up to “Wind of Change.” It’s almost preachy. Musically, it’s a departure, for sure… “Dancing with the Moonlight” is an upbeat rocker with a funk rhythm that could’ve been borrowed from a Lenny Kravitz album or maybe a distant cousin from the soulful “Dancing in the Moonlight” tune by Thin Lizzy.
“When the Truth Is a Lie” has some dark guitars that introduce the song, which reads like another breakup tune, realizing the betrayal that is clearly seen in hindsight. I hope it wasn’t that knockout in the “No One Like You” video that did Klaus Meine wrong! All kidding aside, the dude knows how to pen a painful song.
“Who We Are” follows the Scorp’s ballad formula to a T. It’s compelling because of his vocals, but the BGVs offered up are more Air Supply than what we’d expect from a black leather heavy metal band. Oh well, it’s a bonus cut. “One and One is Three” could be a Cheap Trick cover tune with its uptempo beat, climbing riffs and sing-along-able verses.
“Delirious” is one of the better bonus tracks (iTunes only), a slightly behind the beat tune with great, thundering drums. “Crazy Ride” closes out the collection of bonus tracks with some hollow repeating riffs that could just as easily be at home on a Big Country, Alarm or even ‘80s U2 album. Its lyrics recap the long and wonderful journey that this great German band has taken. Thank goodness they’ve stuck around this long – defying the odds and successfully making music that still means something.
It took me about eight listens to really embrace this album, but I can safely say that my initial disappointment has been flipped over to an appreciative gratitude that I’ve got these tunes to enjoy. Can they still bring it? Oh heck yeah. Is every song good? Not quite. Overall, the good far outweighs the bad. Oh my, I hear a terrible “Bad Boys Running Wild” pun coming on. I’ll end this long-winded book of a review before it’s too late. [Sony Music/Legacy Recordings] Doug Van Pelt
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