SCORPIONS — Rock Believer (review)

Album · 2022 · Hard Rock

3.5/5 · 2022-02-25
siLLy puPPy

Having formed as far back as 1965, Germany’s most successful metal band of all time SCORPIONS may very well be the longest living band that exists within the greater metal universe even though the only member to have been there from the beginning is Rudolf Shenker and the band certainly didn’t start out as a hard rock or metal band. The current calendar year of 2022 also marks the 50th anniversary of the band’s debut release “Lonesome Crow” which is the early oddball in the band’s discography that was a bizarre hybrid of early 70s hard rock and kosmische German Krautrock. The band didn’t really get a hold on its famous hard rock sound until the second release “Fly To The Rainbow” but once that album hit the scene in 1974, the SCORPS set out to conquer the world and have to date sold well over 100 million albums.

The band’s classic years were roughly from 1978 when Mathias Jabs replaced Uli Roth on guitar and then the hits started rolling with one classic album after another racing up the charts. The SCORPS were one of the 1980s biggest heavy metal bands and this success lasted all the way into the 1990s but like most established bands was displaced by the alternative everything 90s and the band flailed around trying to reinvent itself with one pathetic attempt after another culminating in the ill-conceived “Eye II Eye” which found the band taking on a more electronic infused pop rock approach. That album remains the absolute nadir of the band’s career and despite a consistent flow of albums throughout the 21st century, the world passed the SCORPS by making them a relic of the past. A living fossil of sorts.

Despite it all the SCORPIONS love what they do and despite all the rumors of breaking up continue to bounce back and release new material. Although the band hasn’t been heard from since 2015’s lackluster “Return To Forever,” the SCORPS have re-emerged from the studios in Austria to drop their latest slab of classic molten metal onto the world. ROCK BELIEVER is the 21st studio album and follows in the footsteps of other legendary 80s bands like Judas Priest in the sense of getting back to the basics and stop trying to tackle experimental musical styles that they are not capable of crafting. ROCK BELIEVER, like Priest’s “Firepower” sounds like it could’ve been released in the 1980s, in this case somewhere between “Blackout” and “Crazy World.”

The album features three of the golden year SCORPS with Klause Meine retaining his spot on vocals (he has been on every album since 1972), Rudolf Schenker on guitars and Matthias Jabs handling lead guitars. The newer members include bassist Paweł Mąciwoda who has been in the band since 2004 and newest member drummer Mikkey Dee who has placed with King Diamond and Motörhead. Despite the main guys being in their 60s, ROCK BELIEVER keeps the faith and that 80s metal candle burning with 11 classic sounding SCORPIONS tracks. There’s also a deluxe edition that features 5 extra tracks and a Japanese edition that features yet one additional bonus track. Despite the seven year gap between albums, the SCORPS have been true ROCK BELIEVERS by having toured many of the years prior to this album’s release. Of course the pandemic put a kink in the album’s release but now in February 2022, here it is!

For anyone familiar withe the band’s classic 80s years, this album will sound very familiar. It’s obvious the band was trying to replicate those classic album sounds and they have done so with great success. Everyone is still on top of their game even lead singer Meine’s karaoke unfriendly singing style. Jabs still has his classic lead guitar tricks in tact and the majority of the tracks sound as if they may have been culled from the sessions that yielded albums like “Animal Magnetism,” “Blackout” and “Love At First Sting.” Everything really does sound like you’ve taken a time machine back to the 1980s where this album emerged in some parallel universe.

As good and convincing as ROCK BELIEVER is as an 80s retro experience, the problem is that the world has moved on and for a band to reinterpret its most successful period of its career it has to craft some mighty fine material to woo the fanbase back to those years four decades ago. In many ways ROCK BELIEVER achieves this but at the same time none of the material is as strong as those super catchy tunes from the classic 80s albums. In fact some of the riffs sound borrowed from those very tracks. This has been true for bands like Iron Maiden and other bands trying to stay relevant in the modern era. I have mixed feelings about this as i love these bands at their peak but am not really keen on these relive the classic years moments but all in all SCORPIONS do a decent job at rekindling the flames of those peak 80s moments including a stellar ballad “When You Know (Where You Come From)” which ends the non-deluxe album. I have to admit that this is much better than i was expecting and therefore i can highly recommend this album for those who have always wanted more SCORPS albums from the 80s but have been disappointed by the feeble attempts that graced the 90s and beyond.