Tuesday, November 3, 2015

ULI JON ROTH: Scorpions Revisited (2015)

 A few months ago, the legendary guitar player Uli Jon Roth released this album, on which are included his favorite - let's say - songs from the first period of Scorpions. Don't forget that in the 70's Uli Jon Roth tohether with Michael Schenker were the guitar players in Scorpions, and he is responsible for some of the band's greatest compositions. So, what Uli Jon Roth did here, is that he took some of the band's songs, re-record them, and added a few ideas of his own in order to improve them, and make them sound more "modern".
 Speaking for myself, during my teenage years, I have been a very big fan of Scorpions, especially their early period's, so it is almost impossible to be totaly objective here. But I will try... :-)
  I listened to this 2-CD album, and in my opinion there are some positive and some negative things to say about it. So, let's take a quick look at them:
POSITIVES:
1. The sound is crystal clear, and the recording quality is very good.
2. The band's members are very skilled and talented musicians.
3. The small changes that Uli Jon Roth did in the songs, are most of them good ones and they actually improving the songs, without loosing their identity.
NEGATIVES:
1. The songs selection: This is totaly personal, but I would like some others songs to be included, like for example 'Fly People Fly' and 'This is my Song', replacing songs like 'Longing for Fire' or Hell-Cat'. But as I just said, this is totaly personal.
2. The singer. This the biggest problem in the whole CD. (Always according to my musical taste). Nathan James who is the singer, although he has a good voice, he doesn't fit in the songs. Like it or not, Klaus Meine had a very characteristic voice, that's why it is very difficult to be replaced. Nathan James is a little "too much" and as it seems he's overdoing it in many ocassions.
I spoke about this with some of my friends, and all had the same opinion with me. So, it's not just my idea.
 But, despite all the negatives and positives I wrote, 'Scorpions Revisited' is a good album, and a "must" for every fan of Scorpions. (And not only).
 I will conclude this post, by adding some of Uli Jon Roth's own words about this album:

[The material we recorded for this project will be released in two stages, beginning with a double CD, which was recorded last year in the same hall near Hanover that we used for the SCORPIONS rehearsals 1973-1978. Together with an amazing bunch of very talented young musicians, I revisited my personal favorites from the early SCORPIONS period, some of which were written in that same hall. It was an emotional few days and I am very pleased with the results in more ways than one.
The idea was to stay truthful to the original spirit of the music, while also putting a new slant on it whenever it felt like the right thing to do. I feel we succeeded in this. It was an intense journey into the past and I think we really managed to bring the songs back to life with a vengeance. They seem to have a timeless quality and it was easy to revisit this music and fill the old songs with new life. For me, personally, it was very inspirational and I hope that some of that translates towards you, dear friends. I really learned a lot from the whole experience.]
 Here you can take a look at the CD's songlist:

The Sails of Charon
Longing For Fire
Crying Days
Virgin Killer
In Trance
Sun In My Hand
Yellow Raven
Polar Nights
Dark Lady
Catch Your Train
Evening Wind
All Night Long
We'll Burn The Sky
Pictured Life
Hell-Cat
Life's Like A River
Drifting Sun
Rainbow Dream Prelude  
Fly to the Rainbow

  By clicking on the following links, you can listen to a couple of songs from the album.
Enjoy, and thank you for reading. :-)

We'll Burn the Sky
The Sails of Charon

 

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