Scorpions - The Eternal Return

The Scorpions' career, which began in Hannover well before man set foot on the Moon, has come through a whole succession of eras unscathed, elevating them over time to the status of global icons of the world rock scene.

Idolized from America to the Far East, they can still boast the highest number of records sold in history among continental European rock bands. The German masters have tapped into audience tastes with ease, moving effortlessly from pure power anthems to atmospheric pieces, from savage guitar riffing to unforgettable melodic lines. There is virtually no hard rock group or artist to emerge in the Eighties that doesn't cite them as a major influence. Their reach managed to cross borders once considered impassable, as when they were among the first Western rock bands allowed to perform in Russia during the Soviet bloc era, playing in what was then Leningrad for five straight days, in shows that sold out the moment the box office opened.

As affable and easygoing in everyday life as they were overwhelming and wild on stage, the Scorpions embodied to perfection the madness, excess and energy of an entire musical movement. At the peak of their career, they could move crowds of millions of spectators on tour, who responded enthusiastically to the call to arms (in Paris, the fans' fervor actually shifted the stage by more than two meters!).

The numbers behind the logistics of their shows are staggering. For the "Love At First Sting" tour alone in the '80s, they had to haul fifty tons of equipment around the world. That included no fewer than ten thousand guitar strings, literally shredded during concerts by the sheer ferocity with which the German musicians smashed their instruments.

The beginnings

The band was founded way back in 1965 by Rudolph Schenker, a promising young man passionate about rock music, who had always lived in a small town in Lower Saxony near Hildesheim. That town, famous for its pleasant market square, was certainly not known for its cultural vibrancy or nightlife. So it was towards the land of Albion that Schenker more willingly turned his attention. Initially captivated by the rhythms of beat music, before he was even twenty he was struck by the blues-rock of bands like the Yardbirds of Jeff Beck and Jimmy Page, the Pretty Things and the Cream, who in those very years were spreading forcefully from England to the whole world.

Before the Scorpions, he had already founded a band, the Copernicus, which played covers of rock and blues songs. At the time, the family only had one electric guitar, which he had to share with his younger brother Michael, who had founded another band, The Enervates, at the venerable age of eleven. It was Rudolph himself who had instilled in him a passion for the six-string, but Michael soon surpassed him in skill, becoming a true guitar prodigy. Relations between the two were not always the happiest, but there was a period when both shared the stage with the Scorpions, before Michael embarked on a dazzling solo career.

In the Scorpions' original lineup, Schenker handled vocals and guitar, but the lineup was revolutionized multiple times. In the time between the band's formation and the release of its first album, seven years later, as many as ten people took part in the project, and only drummer Wolfgang Dziony kept his place throughout. In 1969, Michael, Lothar Heimberg on bass and Klaus Meine on vocals also joined. The latter would accompany the founder through all the band's subsequent albums and can be considered, just like him, the group's historical memory.

The debut album Lonesome Crow was released in 1972 and met with a good reception, at least from critics, who praised the tightness of the sound and the instrumental quality, remarkably mature for a band of newcomers.

The sound that the Scorpions chose for this first effort was deeply influenced by the psychedelic music of the late '60s. The title track is a sprawling thirteen-minute piece that starts slowly and then builds, through guitar and bass solos, towards a mystical dimension, further heightened by cryptic, mysterious lyrics.

In all the tracks, bass and guitars play a dominant role over the vocals, which often appear in the form of screams or unsettling tones. Even when Meine shows off his vocal skills with an interesting melody on "In Search Of The Peace Of Mind", a menacing bassline looms over it and pushes the sound towards frenzied, delirious rhythms.

On other tracks, like "I Am Going Mad", the percussion also helps create a very intense atmosphere. The material on offer clearly stands apart from everything they would produce on later albums, making Lonesome Crow more appealing to fans of bands like Thin Lizzy, early Black Sabbath or the Doors than to fans of the Scorpions themselves. Either way, it was enough to convince the English band U.F.O. to ask them to open for them on tour. During this experience, frontman Phil Mogg was struck by Michael's incredible talent and invited him to join the band. The young Schenker didn't need to be asked twice, and asked his friend Uli Jon Roth to finish the tour in his place.

At the end of this experience, the Scorpions seemed destined to split up, so Rudolph and Klaus decided to join the Dawn Road's, a small band led by Roth himself, in order to keep playing together. Curiously, they decided to change the band's name back to "Scorpions" to capitalize on the small amount of notoriety gained with the first album.

On guitar: Uli Jon Roth!

The completely overhauled band released Fly To The Rainbow in 1974. Made up of just seven tracks, it is still influenced by psychedelic atmospheres but would set the standard they'd develop more fully on later records. The album is overall very engaging, thanks also to arpeggios with real sonic impact and a much more rock, direct approach. The opening track "Speedy's Coming" would become one of the staples of their live sets throughout the first decade of their career. Roth and Schenker show an almost perfect chemistry, and Francis Buchholz's bass is simply superb throughout the album. Compared to the previous record, however, it feels less cohesive, and it's not always easy to find a common thread running through the tracks.

Worth mentioning is certainly "Fly People Fly", the first big ballad of their prolific catalogue, and the famous title track, written by Roth and Michael Schenker, placed at the end of the record, which serves as the perfect bridge between the dreamlike atmospheres of the first album and the explosive attacks typical of hard rock. With its epic style, harmonic melodies and fast tempo changes, this song fascinated many other German artists, such as Gamma Ray and Helloween, who considered it fundamental to the development of the power metal style in the following decade.

The good things achieved up to that point already hinted at a bright future, but what they would deliver over the following three years would be simply astonishing.

Under the guidance of experienced producer Dieter Dierks, the Scorpions in fact gave birth to three albums that were fundamental both to their own history and to the entire development of heavy metal.

In Trance (1975) definitively sets aside all psychedelic and progressive influences, focusing instead on a melodic rock approach. Across a ten-track run, Meine's voice rises powerfully amid pristine guitar lines, splendid solos and chords full of pathos. There's no roughness, nothing out of place. Newcomer Rudy Lenners' drumming also fits in perfectly, and the chemistry among all the band members is flawless.

The tracks born from Roth's creative genius feature frequent tempo changes and offer the listener no fixed point of reference. On "Dark Lady", the guitarist stands in for Meine on vocals, who "limits" himself to superhuman screams before the chorus; the guitars are distorted for almost the entire track and go through constant rhythm changes before coming to a stop in a fade after a tumultuous crescendo.

Distortion also dominates his other compositions like “Evening Wind” and the instrumental “Nights Lights”. In “Sun My Hand” one can also detect echoes of the atmospheres of Jimi Hendrix Experience, whom the German guitarist particularly admired. “In Trance” also draws on many tracks co-written by Meine and Schenker, which generally feature a more linear structure and a fast tempo. The results are consistently strong, but the title track and “Top Of The Bill” stand out above the rest, with an impeccably clean guitar riff that rages through all three minutes of the track. There's also room for a melodic, dreamy song like “Life's Like A River”, where the tone turns more epic and melancholic, aided by an extraordinarily poetic and inspired lyric.

Just a year later they recorded Virgin Killer and decided to push the energy levels even higher, taking them to the max. On tracks like “Catch Your Train” and “Hell Cat”, the guitar work is superb and the playing speed reaches results beyond imagination. Even the seemingly less inspired tracks are elevated by the band members' skill, such as “In Your Park”, where Meine pulls off some pretty impressive high notes, and “Yellow Raven”, where Bucholz's bass reigns supreme.

Unfortunately, at the time of its release Virgin Killer caused far more of a stir because of its cover, depicting a naked young girl with a crack positioned at pelvis height. From then on, it became almost a trademark of the German band to come up with provocative, often sexually charged covers, featuring scantily clad women or ambiguous poses. In some cases there was also an underlying irony that made them entertaining. In the case of Virgin Killer, however, it's genuinely hard to disagree with critics of such an implausibly tasteless choice.

In any case, the album was the German group's first major success outside their homeland and also cemented their status as undisputed stars back home. The direct, brash rhythm of certain songs, like “Pictured Life” or “Virgin Killer”, hit especially hard in a live setting, where the two guitars roamed thrillingly, alternating breathtaking solos with scales of impressive technical difficulty. Meine is always superb on vocals, but probably the most inspired track is “Polar Nights”, where, curiously, he plays no role at all and hands the microphone to Roth.

It fell to Taken By The Force to close out the trilogy of perfection, and it was also the last studio album the German band made with Roth, who then decided to go solo. Compared with its illustrious predecessors, the album marked a surprising turning point in the German band's career, driven by the force of “Steamrock Fever”, in heavy rotation on every radio station. Artists of the caliber of Yngwie Malmsteen and Dave Mustaine of Megadeth have admitted that this album was decisive to their musical development. Indeed, it contains tracks that anticipated heavy metal, such as the excellent “He's A Woman, She's A Man”, later covered by the thrash band Evildead, or the sheer power of “We'll Burn The Sky”, with a Roth guitar solo worthy of a standing ovation.

At times the driving rhythms give way to softer atmospheres, as in the tender, majestic ballad “Born To Touch Your Feelings”, or in the masterpiece “Sails Of Charon”, which recounts a kind of journey into the underworld. The track, with its dark, elegant and exotic sound, stands as a unicum in their catalog and anticipates by decades patterns that would later be developed in European metal. It can probably be considered the high point of their '70s output.

Conquering the world

Roth would join the other scorpions one more time only for the unforgettable live album Tokio Tapes, which immortalizes the extraordinary concerts held in April 1978 at the Sun Plaza Hall in Tokyo, where Scorpions were welcomed by a huge, enthusiastic crowd. Indeed, the wind had by now shifted in their favor, and from a niche act they were gradually establishing themselves across ever wider parts of the globe. The Mercury label took interest in them and offered a great contract. All that remained was to find a possible replacement for the charismatic Roth. It's said that more than 150 guitarists were auditioned before the choice fell on good old Matthias Jabs, who, together with new drummer Herman Rarebell, would complete the lineup that became Germany's most famous quintet for the entire following decade. Initially Jabs was brought in as a temporary stand-in, but with him the German musicians found a cohesion and chemistry that had previously been simply out of reach, overshadowed as they were by his predecessor's ambitious, visionary ideas.

The new guitarist didn't make it in time to take part in writing Lovedrive (1979), and the band called Michael Schenker back into service, since he had in the meantime left U.F.O. due to serious alcohol dependency problems. The young Schenker handled the guitar work on three tracks, “Another Piece Of Meat”, “Coast To Coast” and “Lovedrive”. According to what he said in an interview, his presence was decisive across all the tracks and gave the band, which was still searching for its own formula, the crucial push it needed.

It's not clear how much truth there is to his claims, not least because relations between the Schenker brothers haven't always been rosy. What's certain, according to many, is that this work can be considered the most “classic” of all Scorpions albums. Not just for the extraordinary number of copies sold and the number of big hits it contains (“Loving You Sunday Morning”, “Can't Get Enough”, “Holiday”, just to name a few) but because it nailed the right balance to create that explosive blend of hard rock songs and melodic ballads that made them famous worldwide. All the tracks are direct and hard-edged with a melodic edge, and they work both as standalone songs and in relation to one another. For anyone who loves listening to music at full volume, wild guitars and soft, reassuring melodies, Lovedrive remains a guiding star that defined (whether you like it or not) the coordinates and direction of hard rock music produced in the years that followed.

The following album, Animal Magnetism (1980), did nothing but confirm their undisputed celebrity status. Songs like “The Zoo” and “Falling In Love” are essential for anyone wanting to get into hard rock. “Lady Starlight” is the classic song to sing along to with lighters held high (at least before the age of smartphones) in a packed stadium. This time too there was no shortage of controversy over the album cover, which depicted a Doberman and a woman kneeling in front of a man shown from behind, but by then the Germans had clearly developed a taste for stirring up the prudish. Despite a few lulls, this work too can be considered a great classic of the band, and if it never gets talked about enough, it's only because it's wedged between the hugely successful previous album and the sublime one that followed, which many consider the highest peak of their career (at least with Jabs on guitar).

Blackout, the German band's eighth studio album, doesn't contain much experimentation, but for its solidity, power and charisma it fully deserves its reputation. The album can ideally be split into two halves: the opening tracks are the more explosive ones, meant to get the blood pumping, while the second half contains more elaborate songs that require more than one listen to fully sink in. The title track is a tornado of guitar, violence and shattering glass, “No One Like You” swings between ballad-like moments and outbursts of rage and nastiness, while “Now!” and “Dynamite” build a dizzying crescendo of speed. “Arizona” and “China White” are less immediately catchy, but the guitar work on them is truly excellent. The grand finale is left to a melancholic, beautiful ballad (“When The Smoke Is Going Down”), which captures the particular feeling that washes over musicians at the end of a show, once everyone has gone home.

Blackout didn't go unnoticed and reached astronomical sales figures, even going platinum in the United States. Their appearance at the San Bernardino festival in front of 375,000 people became the stuff of legend. From that point on, MTV also gave a lot of airtime to their performances and videos, allowing them to reach an audience not otherwise used to listening to hard rock.

It was therefore no surprise that in 1984 Love At First Sting found an even bigger audience, matching its predecessor's sales figures and quickly becoming their biggest commercial success. Indeed, it's an album designed to appeal to a much broader audience. The rhythms are still hard and tight. The riffs and solos are all there. And yet everything is softened by a lack of unpredictability that rarely lets a song break out of the mold. Indeed, looking back at the album's tracklist, it almost feels like flipping through one of their greatest-hits collections. “Rock You Like A Hurricane” became something of an anthem of hard rock, while “Bad Boys Running Wild” and “I'm Leaving You” were belted out by fans at the top of their lungs at every one of their shows. The closing ballad “Still Loving You” remains to this day a fixture in every one of their compilations.

It could be said that this is the first work in which the German band begins to veer toward pop-rock. All things considered, a song that did quite well like “Big City Nights” doesn't have a rhythm all that different from what you'd expect to find on an early Bon Jovi album. This approach paid off commercially, but it made their output less interesting and probably ended up eroding their creative spark in the long run.

Their follow-up album Savage Amusement in 1988 reaffirmed the more commercial tone of the previous record, but with fewer ideas and a decidedly weaker execution. Despite the title, this is an album that's far more pop than rock, more party than savage. The tracks are clearly designed to work a rock arena crowd into a frenzy. The slow moments are the weakest, though the ballad "Walking On The Edge" is still a pleasure to listen to, with guitar work that's less predictable and more intriguing. The record comes alive most in its more energetic moments, like "Love On The Run", or its fierier ones, like "Don't Stop At The Top".

Ultimately, though, this marks the first real misstep of their career.

The period between the release of Love At First Sting and the end of the '80s was nonetheless an unrepeatable season for the German band. They embarked on exhausting tours that took them to literally every corner of the globe, selling out almost every single date. Then again, from the very beginning the Scorpions had always shown a willingness to reach their fans wherever they were, touring countries that were normally off the beaten path. Now at the peak of their career, they crossed the Soviet border, played the famous Rio concert, and established themselves as a band with a powerful live reputation.

In 1985 they also released a double album called World Wide Live, which captures the highlights of the 1984 tour and also included a videocassette. Needless to say, this release too went gold in many countries and platinum in Canada and the United States. Due to a change of record label, this live album shares no songs in common with the previous one. Anyone interested in exploring the explosive energy of the German band and their evolution over time should turn primarily to these two live albums, which capture the very best of the first part of their career.

Wind of Change

The Scorpions had the burden/honor of writing the anthem for the event that "closed" the so-called short century. "Wind Of Change" was written a year after the fall of the Berlin Wall and, although it contains no direct reference to the event, it became a kind of celebratory hymn for the end of the Cold War. The whistled intro, instantly recognizable to anyone who has heard it even once, ended up drawing all the attention onto itself and turned the single into one of the biggest commercial successes in the history of music.

It's a shame, given their career, that in the eyes of many Schenker and co. are seen only as "the Wind Of Change guys". It's also true, however, that none of their subsequent output gave fans anything memorable.

The album Crazy World (1990) contains that famous song, along with a few hits like "Send Me An Angel", but otherwise drifts along flatly, lacking in ideas — all the more striking when you consider the solid musical movements emerging in other corners of rock during those very years (grunge, shoegaze, metal). The syrupy atmospheres and frequent filler tracks give the impression of a record that has aged badly. Not everyone in the band approved of the new sound, and the tensions eventually caused the historic five-piece to fall apart. Already by the end of the tour, bassist Bucholz had been fired from the band over financial issues.

With Face The Heat (1993) the Scorpions tried to climb back up, but without much fanfare. Fans who had only recently discovered them were probably thrown off by the total absence of saccharine tones. On the contrary, tracks like "Alien Nations" and "Ship Of Fools" were designed to make listeners jump out of their seats. Even so, there's always room in the Scorpions' sting for a romantic ballad: the unremarkable but catchy "Under The Same Sun" and "Woman", and the decent but sadly underrated "Lonely Nights".

Curiously, they also included "No Pain No Gain" in the tracklist, which, according to their hopes, was meant to become a kind of anthem to be belted out at the USA World Cup. Unfortunately for them, the German national team couldn't repeat Italy's "Notti Magiche", and their song was met with a rather lukewarm reception.

In the years that followed, the Scorpions seemed more interested in maximizing profits from what they'd already done than in creating new music. In just ten years they released no fewer than twelve compilations (one, in 2002, also containing two new tracks) and two live albums. In 2000 they also recorded an album in collaboration with the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, featuring rearranged tracks from their back catalogue plus a new single, "Moment Of Glory", which also gave the project its name.

Two years later they released Acoustica, on which their greatest classics were rearranged in acoustic versions.

The only two albums of new material they released in the rest of the '90s served only to definitively confirm their creative crisis.

With Pure Instinct (1996) they tried to win back the nostalgics of "Wind Of Change" by releasing a song like "Does Anyone Know", which comes across as a faded copy of it, pairing it with an endless run of the band's house specialty: romantic rock ballads. Even setting aside the lyrics, predictable enough even by their standards, a good half of the record is genuinely sloppy. Klaus Meine does his best with his vocal abilities, but the rest of the band merely goes through the motions, churning out four chords and unengaging verses.

As for the ballads, none of them reach the heights of their best work, but "Where The Rivers Flows" is worth a listen, at the very least making for decent background music.

Broadly speaking, the songs penned by Schenker on this album turn out better than the rest, but even these don't escape the aura of predictability hanging over the whole record.

Eye II Eye (1999) confirms the downward trend that was slowly swallowing up the German band toward lower-quality records. In this case, though, the words "collapse" and "rout" feel more fitting. It's unclear whether the German group intended to pad out their bank account by aping a more modern style, or simply thought they could overhaul their whole approach to music. The result is clumsy to say the least, and in the end their sources of inspiration don't seem particularly lofty either. "Obsession" brings to mind the saccharine pop of the Backstreet Boys; "To Be N° 1" sounds like a cross between a young Hanson and the George Michael of that era; "What U Give U Get Back" recalls Nickelback's uncomplicated melodic rock. It's hard not to smirk at the Scorpions attempting to rap in German on "Du Bist So Schmutzig", and the chorus of "Aleya" would be rejected without hesitation even by an easy-pop band.

Modern Times

The 2004 album Unbreakable marked the band's return to pure, hard-edged hard rock, and was greeted with huge enthusiasm by fans, who had long hoped for their idols to get back on the "right" track. In truth, it's not an outstanding work, but it had the merit of bringing the diehards back into the fold while also giving a nod to rock of the new millennium. For better listening, it probably would have helped to trim a few filler tracks weighing down a record that otherwise comfortably runs over an hour.

The German band is still carried by the longtime duo of Meine and Schenker. Mąciwoda on bass is content to follow the guitars and throw in the occasional tempo shift, while Kottak on drums also contributes as a writer, but overall makes you miss his predecessor. Jabs' guitar still seems not to have fully shaken off the torpor that's gripped it for quite some time, but the good news is that the music for one of the album's best songs, "Deep In Dark", was written by none other than the band's first guitarist. Also worthy of their best days are the excellent "Love 'Em Or Leave 'Em", the single lifted from it, "Someday Is Now", with a gorgeous guitar solo, and the evocative "Through My Eyes".

Unbreakable also makes room for an unusual collaboration with Iranian pianist Anoushiravan Rohani, who wrote the music for "Maybe I Maybe You", a song perfectly suited to showcase Meine's incredible vocal gifts. All in all, it's a record that comfortably clears the bar and bodes well for the five fearsome Germans heading into a new, upward-trending millennium.

Their bank account surely kept growing, and they didn't put a stop to the flood of compilations that had begun after the release of "Wind Of Change". Curiously, to this day, the number of compilations released far outstrips their studio albums.

In 2007 they tried to relaunch themselves once and for all with Humanity: Hour I, a highly ambitious album on which they spared no expense in terms of production and collaborations. In particular, the Germans enlisted the expert hand of Desmond Child, author of many commercial hits for bands like Bon Jovi, Aerosmith and Kiss. The title alludes to a dystopian, apocalyptic future in which humans and robots wage a kind of civil war.

The songs sketch out a sort of narrative, to the point that the record comes across as a kind of concept album. That's not exactly a strong starting point for a band that has always stood out for crafting engaging melodies and majestic guitar riffs rather than for its songwriting chops. And this record certainly won't change anyone's opinion of them, given how weak some of the lyrics are (“Save me/ Cause the world’s gonna stop/ Baby 321/ Are you ready to rock”).

Adding to the confusion is the fact that roughly half the songs' lyrics show seemingly no trace of the album's central theme of war between man and machine. Still, at least on the musical side, the Scorpions prove they still have a clear idea of what kind of music to offer. While giving a nod to the nu metal sound that was all the rage at the time, Humanity never comes across as the botched hybrid that was the unfortunate Eye II Eye experience.

Once again, the ever-youthful Meine's vocal performance deserves applause, as on the verge of sixty he still soars gracefully into sky-high registers. No small feat, considering he even risked losing his voice altogether due to vocal cord problems around the time of Blackout. On "The Cross" he shares the mic with Billy Corgan, though the collaboration could have been handled better, perhaps with a duet between two artists whose voices have such distinctive character.

The album's twelve tracks are well crafted and go down smoothly without major stumbles, but they fade from memory fairly quickly. For those used to the hearty, flavorful fare the German masters once served up, these short, sanitized, radio-friendly tracks come across as a bit impersonal. No doubt this owes something to the Scorpions' limited experience surrounding themselves with co-writers, as well as their decision to craft easily digestible songs aimed at winning over new generations of fans.

Humanity: Hour I achieved modest success, especially in Russia, where the Scorpions went platinum and performed at the Kremlin in a concert celebrating the Cheka (though they claimed they thought the show had been organized to celebrate Christmas). Persistent rumors suggested the band was already working on a follow-up, Hour II, but in 2010 they unexpectedly released their new record Sting In The Tail, which, according to their original plans, was also meant to be their last. They later changed their minds, but at the time the thought that the Scorpions' long career was drawing to a close stirred widespread emotion.

The sound recalls Unbreakable more than its predecessor. Schenker said the idea was to get back to their roots, a goal also hinted at by the title's resemblance to their famous 1984 album. Although they again relied on plenty of outside collaborators, they made an effort to return to their unmistakable '80s sound.

The album's opening is more than promising. The band has by now found a new balance, and even the performances of Mąciwoda and Kottak bring fresh imagination and ideas. "Raised On Rock", "Sting In The Tail" and "Turn You On" are excellent songs that could easily have held their own on an album from 25 years earlier.

The same can't be said of the other tracks, which end up feeling like reheated, repetitive leftovers: unfortunately, Scorpions weren't able to muster enough venom to make a whole album live up to expectations. They manage to sting once more on the closing track, "The Best Is Yet To Come", which seems to be their definitive farewell to their audience, bringing a tear or two to the eyes of longtime fans.

Despite the initial intentions, however, the breakup never materialized, and the German band carried on with their live performances and their tireless output of anthologies, live albums, or simply remastered reissues of old records. Worth noting is the 2014 Athens live album Unplugged, which also contains a few unreleased tracks.

To mark their fiftieth anniversary, they released a new album, Return to Forever, a collection of B-sides, outtakes and unreleased material written in recent years. It's a work that continues the band's attempt to reconnect with tradition and cater to their more nostalgic fanbase in this final stretch of their career. Since it's a release made up of very disparate material, it can only really be judged as the sum of its parts. Listeners won't find buried treasures or forgotten gems here, but for collectors of their music, it offers a chance to trace the evolution - or devolution - of their sound from the '80s to today.

Unfazed by the passing of the seasons, in 2021 Scorpions announced that they had a new album planned for the following year, Rock Believer, along with a world tour.

On this new record, the German band reaffirms the muscular approach that has defined this latest stage of their career, delivering a performance of blistering intensity. Right from the opening track, "Gas In The Tank", they prove they've still got fuel left in the tank, and amid deafening sirens and wide-open guitars, they promise hammering riffs and good rock music. The snarling guitars and driving rhythms of the following songs showcase Meine's qualities, who at the venerable age of 73 still shows off irresistible vocal modulations. Scorpions also seem revitalized by the relentless drive imposed by their new drummer, Mikkey Dee. Thanks in part to his background in a major act like Motorhead, the drummer brings with him just the right mix of experience and team spirit needed to play in a band with such a towering history.

The whole record could be described as a call to arms for nostalgics of '80s hard rock. Tracks like "Seventh Sun" and "Hot And Cold" sound as if they were catapulted straight out of the World Wide Tour. There's little room for the melodic ballads that made the band's fortune in the '90s. There's no concession to more modern atmospheres, nor any real desire to break new sonic ground. It's a record meant to reassure their audience that Scorpions' way of making music isn't about to wither away. The new songs add further reasons to go wild during their fiery tours, and aside from a few uninspired moments in the album's second half (not to mention all the bonus tracks on the deluxe edition), they come across as satisfying.

Rock Believer doesn't feel like the farewell record of a band at the end of its career. The vintage flavor of these anthems still sounds freshly polished, and lends itself well to the live setting, where the Germans have never shown any sign of flagging.

Heading toward sixty years of career, Scorpions still show a passion for rock and a willingness to put themselves on the line, which is also the reason behind their long and remarkable career.

Ride the wave of great music

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