Label: Nuclear Blast Records
Release date: 1/29/2021
Production: Michael Schenker & Michael Voss
Album length: 45.02 min
Genre: Hard Rock / Heavy Rock
Rating: 9.0/10
The great Michael Schenker is back. This time with an album he’s released under the name Michael Schenker Group. Schenker has weathered every storm in his career, and he’s always played with his cards on the table. What you see is what you get. He’s a musician of exceptional compositional talent, and as a guitarist his contribution, and we can say this without a shred of modesty, makes up a gigantic chunk of the six-string Bible of the world, since he largely wrote it himself.
Michael Schenker announced his big comeback loud and clear with two excellent Michael Schenker Fest albums, which made it plain that the charismatic guitarist had caught a fresh wind in the sails of creative inspiration, and that showed in the fascinating variety of the compositions, every last one of which grabbed you. Schenker carried that momentum over to the new MSG album “Immortal” too, and pulled off yet another seriously good record. The “immortal” Schenker, who was still a wet-behind-the-ears teenager when he was already writing songs for Scorpions, right before their commercial breakthrough, has in a career of more than 50 years properly shaken up the world of rock ‘n’ roll with his work through the seventies, preserved in eternal classics and the golden-era albums of UFO, and so influenced generations of guitarists who soaked up his expressive genius. Today, alongside a handful of chosen others, to whom we can add Eddie Van Halen and Randy Rhoads, Schenker is one of the guitarists who, into the first half of the eighties and beyond, popularized guitar playing and, with their innovations, showed just how far heavy rock and heavy metal could still go (then Malmsteen and Satriani showed up, but that’s another story).
On the nine new original tracks, Schenker split the lead vocals among four singers who hadn’t worked with him before. Dominant, distinctive voices. The names: Ralf Scheepers, Ronnie Romero, Michael Voss and Joe Lynn Turner. Schenker gave Scheepers the singing on the two most aggressive and fastest tracks on the album. That’s turf Scheepers knows inside out and simply lives in. But the production and compositional setting is different, which makes for a very interesting mix of Scheepers’ Primal Fear/Gamma Ray approach with the neoclassical heavy rock sorcery of the seasoned old fox Schenker. Schenker wanted a track like that in the album-opening slot, and he got it with the fury of Scheepers’ “bestial barking” on Drilled to Kill. The ‘Speed King’-style outro is interesting, marked by a fun back-and-forth between Schenker and Sherinian. Devil’s Daughter is the second of these more aggressive numbers (with Scheepers on vocals), and it could just as well have opened the album.
The biggest vocal kinship among the chosen singers is actually between Romero and Turner, even though Turner is at most a role model for Romero. Maybe that’s no surprise when you remember that both sang in Rainbow. Don’t Die On Me Now, after an aggressive intro, puts things in their place. It’s a classic hard rock track with a typical verse followed by a vivid, mystical chorus. The other one with Turner on vocals is the “cinematic” Sangria Morte, with a light Spanish flavor, another chorus that burrows under your skin, and another very skillful conjuring of mystique. One of the most classic and also most majestic songs on the album is at the same time the shortest. That’s Sail the Darkness. It sounds the most classically MSG of the lot, while also carrying the outline of classic Rainbow. Romero deepens those feelings with his fresh, fascinating vocal delivery. Both tracks with vocals by Michael Voss again count among the album’s mystical moments. They especially add bombast to the record. The first is the ballad After the Rain, which Voss pulls off very well, especially for his age, which shows quite a bit of vocal wear on the Mad Max albums. The second is Queen of Thorns and Roses, where there’s even a pinch of AOR pomp. Robin McAuley’s vocals would have worked phenomenally in both compositions, but Schenker decided otherwise.
It’s a set of extremely vivid compositions that impress with a polished character of gradually building moods. These are often crowned with a compact dose of mysticism. Of course, the lead role goes to Schenker’s creative genius and a new phenomenal adventure that takes the listener into the realm of his fantastic guitar wizardry. It’s a nostalgic “escape” to the classic days of hard and heavy rock. Schenker is one of a kind and nobody equals him. He’s a unique phenomenon of old-school rock, and inimitable. “Immortal” is a reflection and an imprint that vividly rounds off his musical path. A path constantly marked by a flattering hallmark of innovation. An additional element of character and mood variety comes from the vocal charisma of four singers.
A special story on the album is its longest track, In Search Of The Peace Of Mind. Schenker wrote it at just under sixteen, while Scorpions were recording the album “Lonesome Crow”. As a never-satisfied perfectionist, Schenker said of his decision that he’d always wanted to give it another go. He said himself that he wasn’t a very good guitarist when he wrote it, but regardless, he’s still fascinated today by the song’s lead phrase, as well as some other solutions he managed to record back then as a wet-behind-the-ears kid. The song is considered the darkest composition on the album, and in its refreshed arrangement it’s an absolute treat and a highlight, planted right at the tail end of “Immortal”. Not only is it the darkest track on the record, it’s also a proper mini epic suite, where Schenker spreads his wings once more for the big finale with brilliant soloing, and in the outro of the track, and with it the album, delivers exactly the quality the rock world values and respects him for so much. The album closes with this theatrical whirlwind. Three legendary vocalists also line up in this song, who co-defined Schenker’s musical career and who appeared on the past two Michael Schenker Fest albums: Gary Barden, Robin McAuley and Doogie White, though the lead vocal in the opening verses is taken by Schenker himself.
So Michael Schenker built himself an immortal monument a long time ago. Unlike his brother Rudi, who took a different road to fame with Scorpions and still puts the most emphasis on the “million-dollar” smile in front of the cameras, Michael only values the bread that’s earned with calloused hands. That means constantly creating and composing new music and, of course, recording albums. “Immortal” is a superb set of nine tracks and one Scorpions cover, “woven” into 45 minutes of dynamic, highly combustible heavy and hard rock adventure that grabs you with brilliantly fresh ideas and superior variety. Considering that this is an album that offers the listener, in one place, the essential, elementary part of Michael Schenker’s musical dossier, the celebration of 50 years of a musical career, which Schenker clearly emphasized in the announcements before the album’s release, is all the more justified. So even if you don’t know the musician, “Immortal” is a hugely fitting entry point that leads you into the man and his work. That means “Immortal” has made a phenomenal connection with the first half of the eighties, especially the first three MSG albums.
Author: Aleš Podbrežnik
Track list:
1. Drilled To Kill
2. Don’t Die On Me Now
3. Knight Of The Dead
4. After The Rain
5. Devil’s Daughter
6. Sail The Darkness
7. The Queen Of Thorns And Roses
8. Come On Over
9. Sangria Morte
10. In Search Of The Peace Of Mind
Lineup:
Joe Lynn Turner – vocals on tracks no. 2 and 9
Ralf Scheepers – vocals on tracks no. 1 and 5
Michael Voss – vocals on tracks no. 4 and 7
Ronnie Romero – vocals on tracks no. 3, 6, 8 and 10
Michael Schenker – guitar, backing vocals, vocals on track no. 10
Steve Mann – keyboards, guitar
Barry Sparks – bass guitar
Simon Phillips – drums
Brian Tichy – drums
Bodo Schopf – drums
Guest vocalists:
Gary Barden – vocals on track no. 10
Robin McAuley – vocals on track no. 10
Doogie White – vocals on track no. 10
Preprosto genij. Imel sem ga priložnost videti z UFO na Walk On Water turneji. Noro. Z obliži polimani prsti, flying stisnjen med noge … in čisti užitek. Je bilo pa malo nenavadno po koncertu, saj je le Michael imel avtogram session, na kateri je prodajal svoj CD “Michael Schenker Story Live”. Je le šlo za UFO reunion turnejo, ampak očitno se je dobro spogajal. Ampak najbrž ne sam, ves čas ga je budno čuvala njegova “Yoko Ono”. Mislim, da je potem, ko sta šla narazen, takoj dal Philu Moggu vse pravvice za UFO. Pač hecno je bilo, ker ima sicer včasih veliko za povedati čez Phila.
Sicer je pa zame njegov genij predvsem v tem, da je njegova kitara vedno v službi pesmi in ne sili v prvi plan. Ni kot Yngwie, kjer je vse podrejeno njegovi kitari. Pri Schenkerju lahko solo povsem preslišiš, lahko pa mu natančno prisluhneš in slišiš vso genialnost.
Walk On Water turneja 😀 Wooow, to je bil tam 1995/96? Bojda so igral v Grazu? Jaz sem UFO samo z Vinnie Moore-om ujel trikrat, ampak to je proti koncertu z line-upom v katerem je Schenker, kot da jih nisem niti enkrat gledal 🙂 respect.
Meni osebno en najljubših kitaristov, prav zato kot si opisal zgoraj. On je to nakazal na UFO klasikah v sedemdesetih – una izhodna solaža v Love to Love – vedno dobim kurjo polt, kot kadar poslušam, izhodno Gilmourjevo solažo v Comfortably Numb. Ampak verzija Love to Love na “Strangers in the Night” je pa sploh fenomenalna. Ja samo res. Ko greš tko od komada do komada, je neverjeten ta stik klasike z bluesom in izplen muzikalnosti, ki jo je on bil sposoben pričarat v solažah, ki so vse po vrsti neskončno poslušljive in duhovite, res genij. Nova plata je meni osebno (po kreativni plati) res pravi stik s klasičnimi 80’es MSG albumi.
Sem moral letnico preveriti – v bistvu je bilo 1998. Ni bila ravno Walk on water tour, bil pa Walk on Water še vedno aktualni album. Ja, v Orpheumu so igrali. Sem jih tudi kasneje imel priložnost gledati z Vinnijem in moram reči, da možak opravlja odlično delo. Sem bil najprej skeptičen zaradi njegove shredderske preteklosti, ampak v UFO je lepo slišati njegove blues rockovske korenine.
Sem pa Schenkerja imel priložnost gledati tudi z MSG (2004) pa to vendarle ni bilo isto kot UFO. Je pa tudi res, da je šlo za eno izmed po moji oceni šibkejših inkarnacij s Chrisom Loganom na vokalu.
Hej, hej 🙂
Sem prebiral o tem UFO koncertu v eni od številk revije Dr. Music, še dons mi je žal zakaj sem tako pozno šel izpit za avto delat, je pa res da nisem bil v devetdesetih še tak koncertni navdušenec, kot prav nekje na prelomu v novi milenij , prav z letom 2000 – takrat sem začel zapadat v koncertno mrzlico. No, po drugi plati sem pa ogromno zamudil. K sreč sem Floyde ujel 1994, to je bil pa tud en moj redkih koncertnih obiskov v devetdesetih.
Z Vinniejem so bili v Grazu 4. 6. 2004 – to je bil moj prvi UFO koncert, pa pol mislim da 8. 3. 2008 na Dunaju (skupaj z metalci Angra) in 12. 12. 2015 kot predskupina Judas Priest v Brnu. Vinnie je tud mene popolnoma presenetil, ravno po tej plati kot si omenil. Pričakoval sem precej bolj naježen kitarski zvok, možakar je pa poln teh bluesy fines in mehkobe 🙂
Je pa Moog na vseh treh koncertih komaj stal po konci – vmes je večkrat pozabil verze itn… “Demon Alcohol” (Ozzy že ve) 🙂