SCORPIONS – Unbreakable

Man, have these guys screwed it up in the last ten years. In my humble opinion, there hasn’t been a killer Scorpions album since Love At First Sting. Amazingly enough, that came out 20 years ago! Even though Savage Amusement and Crazy World posted strong sales figures, they weren’t really good albums. Then, Face The Heat was bad, Pure Instinct was even worse, and Eye II Eye was nothing but a total disaster. In addition, they were fooling around with the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra for Moment Of Glory and blew the dust of their acoustic guitars with the highly unnecessary Acoustica.

2004 marks the comeback for Scorpions, five years since the aforementioned Eye II Eye. And let’s spill the beans right off the bat: this is not a crappy Scorpions album! They are back, and back with a vengeance. Finally! And boy, am I glad these boys have finally awakened. Gone are the stupid drum machines, and Mr. Schenker and Mr. Jabs have finally realized there are volume knobs on their amplifiers.

Klaus Meine still hasn’t learned a bit about English pronunciation yet … after how many albums? It still sounds funny, and only Doro Pesch sounds worse from the stock of German Metalers. Udo Dirkschneider can handle it, and so can Andi Deris. Why can’t Meine? God only knows. But complaining about something that has almost been the trademark for Scorpions for 32 years won’t get you anywhere.

Unbreakable starts off with a heavy tune called “New Generation,” which has reportedly started their most recent shows as well. Not the best tune on the album, but good, and it kinda tells us where we are going. And further down the road, the Scorpions start to find their old form in “Love Em Or Leave Em,” and in the mighty rocker “Blood Too Hot,” two of the best tunes on Unbreakable. Other favorites are “Someday Is Now,” and the bonus track “Remember The Good Times,” with its 80s guitar riffs and striking choruses.

There’s a new bass player onboard, Paweł Mąciwoda, and he is slightly more Hard Rock oriented than the guy before him, Ralph Rieckermann. Barry Sparks from Dokken guests as well on bass. Behind the kit is Kingdom Come’s drummer, James Kottak. The band sounds really great, and each musician is pulling in the same direction.

The reason why Scorpions survived the late 80s was those freakin’ power ballads, especially “Wind Of Change.” Here we get “Maybe I Maybe You” but it can’t be compared to “Wind Of Change,” or “Still Loving You,” or “Holiday,” for that matter, this is just a totally different outfit, and the old Germans do it well. There is more happening, and the last minute of the song lifts it to a higher level with a heavier sound.

“Unbreakable” contains 13 songs and none of them are bad. Meine, Schenker and Jabs hold a decent position in timeless Heavy Rock tunes, and they are really back in business by delivering straightforward Hard Rock songs. The last one is called “Remember The Good Times,” and when listening to Unbreakable; I kinda do…