Review Summary: Ageless sting.
It feels like yesterday, but it's been already a whole year since a live performance of Scorpions' "Still Loving You" at the 2015 edition of Hellfest landed on my YouTube playlist one night by chance when I was trying to get my then five months old baby to sleep. When the first notes started to pour out of Jabs’ and Schenker’s axes, the little one entered a state of complete bewilderment and it only took Klaus Meine a few verses to fulfill the spell on her. The video became a highly valuable resource in my household, and whenever our precious little gremlin showed signs of getting ready to unleash her fury, we would reach the TV remote and trigger that performance like if our lives depended on it (which, in a way, they did).
If you see the video has sixteen million views at the time of writing this review, I can promise you that one of those millions belongs entirely to my IP address. We have watched the video such an unhealthy amount of times, that I can tell you in advance of every single photogram, every gesture, every word and note of a song that I honestly never cared much about. And those fans that appear on the video? The kissing metal couple? The blue-eyed pretty boy? The piercing girl and her friend? They are all like family to me now, my daughter's first friends, faithful companions of endless battles at twilight trying to calm the sudden geysers of pre-mature wrath of a very young Scorpion fan.
Scorpions have been around for over 50 years now. They have lived in their rock fantasy in what feels like forever, never slowing down, never giving up, and preserving their unmistakable sound almost intact through the very different decades they have been through, sometimes more effectively than others. Rudolf Schenker once said in an interview included in the World Wide Live documentary they filmed in 1985 that he never wanted to be a fast guitar player, he just wanted to be like Lennon or McCartney, and be able to write good songs. There’s no doubt his wishes have long been granted, since he's the man behind some of the most emblematic anthems in the history of hard rock, but I always wondered for how long were him, Jabs and Meine, the old Scorpion guard, be able to keep the engine running?
Fifty years is a long time and
Rock Believer, the last full length by the Germans and their 21st album, give or take, partly answers the question. It's an album that shows the band's seniority while attempting to sound fresh. It’s a dedicated love letter to their loyal fanbase, featuring their always adorable commitment to their simple "rock" principles and in the meantime, doing so in astonishing good shape. Scorpions could have recorded this album thirty years ago and I doubt it would sound very different. Their sting is truly ageless, especially in the case of Klaus Meine's vocals, which are a complete mystery of nature, only matched by Ozzy still being alive and relatively well.
On a first pass,
Rock Believer hits a really sweet spot after the first ten minutes, with the riveting title track being followed by the last single, the quasi-reggae tinged mid-tempo of "Shining of Your Soul" and closing up this trio of hard hitters with the fantastic "Seventh Sun". Up, down, left and right of these three tracks there’s... Well, let’s say there's a bit of everything.
The first three songs of the album try to set things to speed from the get go with spirited riffs and hasty tempos, and they do achieve what they’re set to accomplish, but the songs itself don't carry the same poison than the Scorpions of old, so don’t expect anything that comes close to the likes of "Big City Nights" or "No One Like You". Instead, be prepared to be struck by some serious hard and heavy duty rock’n’roll that sounds as raw and fuming as ever. The second half has some surprises in store, with solid rock pieces like "Peacemaker" or "Hot and Cold" showcasing the chemistry between ex-Motorhead drumming beast Mickey Dee and the rest of the band, and even a ballad titled "When You Know (Where You Come From)". This track tries to re-capture that old Scorpions magic that has brought them so much success in the past with songs like "Winds of Change" or "Send me an Angel", and the band seems so confident about it that they actually included an entirely acoustic version to close the album, so you can practice before they hit your town again.
Rock Believer is quite an achievement for the German legends considering the circumstances, but it's also an album that I don’t believe it will garner them many new fans at this point. A taxing length for these modern times (over an hour) and some less inspired cuts like "Call of the Wild", "When Tomorrow Comes", or "Crossing Borders" could have been left out and the album would had benefit from a tighter packing. On the other hand, how can you blame Uncle Schenker and co. for wanting to give their fans as much material as possible? Hell, any of these tracks could be a classic in the next thirty years and I wouldn’t know about it. Maybe my daughter will find herself reaching for the remote to pacify her kids with "Peacemaker" thundering through the speakers in the future. I wouldn’t have believed it myself when my dad put me through “Make it Real” thirty years ago and yet, here we are!
