Review Summary: The album Scorpions were never going to make
Once I had discovered how much I loved Scorpions with Uli Jon Roth, I wanted to understand what had drawn him away from the band. I knew he wanted to pursue more experimental music, but Electric Sun’s debut still caught me off guard. Released in 1979, the same year as
Lovedrive, Earthquake makes the difference between their ambitions extremely easy to hear. Scorpions were refining a hard rock sound with increasingly broad appeal. Roth was busy finding out how far he could stretch his own compositions. He has since described the departure as an artistic decision, explaining that pieces such as
Japanese Dream and
Earthquake needed a different home. Listening to this album, I understand why he felt compelled to leave.
The choice of a trio, with Ule Ritgen on bass and Clive Edwards on drums, immediately invites comparisons with other famous rock trios, like Cream and the Jimi Hendrix Experience. The record’s dedication to Hendrix makes that affection explicit, while Monika Dannemann’s celestial sleeve painting suits its psychedelic outlook. Musically, heavy blues and acid rock provide the foundations for Roth’s developing classical ambitions. He also makes extensive use of overdubbing, multiplying his guitar into something approaching a small rock orchestra. The bass and drums often establish a relatively straightforward accompaniment over which those layers can unfold. There is less of the insistent rhythmic attack I associate with Scorpions, and the guitar has a warmer, more spacious setting. Roth’s own account of the sessions confirms that he deliberately sought that sound, moving the recording to London’s Olympic Studios to obtain it.
His playing is remarkable even by the standards of the records that preceded it. The violin-like phrasing gives the faster runs a fluidity that makes their difficulty easy to underestimate, and the changes in tone can alter the mood of a passage almost instantly.
Burning Wheels Turning contains enough ideas and material to keep an aspiring guitarist occupied for months, even years. Its intertwining leads sustain the interest through the sheer pleasure of following how one phrase develops into another. I admire the dexterity, certainly, but what keeps me listening is Roth’s imagination. He absorbs Hendrix’s vocabulary and sonic attacks so thoroughly that he can reshape it through his own melodic instincts and classical interests and make it completely his own. At his best, the combination sounds entirely natural, however unlikely it might look on paper.
There is considerable feeling in the softer playing, too. The reflective, ethereal writing around
Japanese Dream and
Lilac give the album a dreamy intimacy, and Roth can submit a great deal with a delicate line or an unexpected harmony. They belong comfortably beside the more vigorous guitar work of
Sundown, extending the emotional scope of the record without making it feel like a collection of unrelated exercises. These gentler moments also help explain the appeal of the studio arrangements. Overlapping guitars can create a sense of distance, or let a melody linger beneath another, with results that would be difficult for three musicians to reproduce unaided. The possibilities seem to delight Roth, and much of that delight reaches the listener.
His ambition does occasionally outrun the writing. Some chord changes leave me wondering how one section relates to the next, and the more wayward sequences can lose the continuity that makes his strongest passages so absorbing. Unusual harmonies are welcome, but a surprising turn still has to earn its place in the composition. Elsewhere, familiar Scorpions habits remain audible, particularly in the opening song’s resemblance to
Polar Nights and some more straightforward material by Hendrix. That familiarity is enjoyable in itself, although it leaves
Earthquake sounding like a first attempt at a new direction, with some ideas developed much further than others. Across its forty minutes, the album never quite acquires the overall consistency of Roth’s finest work with his former band.
The singing is a more persistent obstacle. Roth’s hesitant delivery and nasal tone struggle with melodies that deserve a stronger voice, while his pronounced accent can make the phrasing cumbersome. His mystical lyrics ask for a conviction that the performances do not always supply, and the flower-child imagery occasionally becomes awkward to sit through. According to the history on his website, the band failed to find a suitable singer before recording began, leaving Roth to handle the job despite his reservations. That explains the decision, but it cannot improve what comes through the speakers. With a more capable vocalist, several of these songs could have made a much greater impression beyond the guitar passages.
The closing instrumental gives the clearest indication of what he was reaching for. Over ten minutes,
Earthquake gathers the eccentricity I loved in
Taken by Force into a much larger configuration, with orchestral ambitions and guitars that seem ready to tear through the recording. By moving between uneasy textures and stately melodies, the piece gradually builds toward a final crescendo that feels like the natural culmination of everything that came before. By then, Roth appears to have searched every corner of the fretboard for another sound, another way to intensify the music. It is a wonderfully excessive piece, and the scale of its conclusion justifies the freedom he allows himself. Here, the scattered possibilities heard elsewhere become a convincing whole. It’s simply a masterpiece of a song, and it leaves the album on a level that its weaker moments cannot approach.
There are great all-round rock records, and there are albums whose guitar playing makes them indispensable despite their shortcomings. Earthquake belongs firmly in the latter company. I would have preferred more assured singing and a little discipline in some of the arrangements, but the best material makes those complaints easy to live with. This is an underappreciated masterclass in guitar playing, and its appeal extends well beyond the curiosity of hearing what Roth did after leaving Scorpions. It’s an absorbing first statement from a musician pursuing ideas he could no longer leave unexplored. Anyone who wished his earlier guitar excursions could continue a little longer will find plenty here to treasure.
Thank the guitar gods Uli left Scorpions to pursue his own music. The band became a hit machine, delivering one radio favourite after another, while Roth blessed us with some of the finest guitar rock albums ever conceived.
Recommended tracks:
Electric Sun
Burning Wheels Turning
Sundown
Winterdays
Still So Many Lives Away
Earthquake
