Michael Schenker Group – Immortal
Release Date: 29th January 2021
Label: Nuclear Blast
Pre-Order/Stream
Genre: Hard Rock
FFO: UFO, MSG.
Review By: Paul Franklin
To celebrate his big 5 0 in the music business, legendary guitar maestro Micheal Schenker put ‘the band back together’ and recruited a shed load of musicians under the MSG moniker to record Immortal. With names from bands including (but not limited to) Rainbow, Whitesnake, Dokken, Deep Purple and Dream Theater, there is a very impressive roster of talent spread across the album’s ten tracks.
Rainbow’s Ronnie Romero is credited with the main singing duties, bolstered by Ralf Scheepers (Primal Fear), former Rainbow frontman Joe Lynn Turner and, on the Scorpions style euro ballad After The Rain, by the albums co-producer Michael Voss. It’s Scheepers who steps up to the mic first on the machine-gun rattling, boot-marching stomp of Drilled To Kill, an out and out heavy rocker with a slightly simplistic anti-war message, but a classic guitar/keyboard duel. Turner takes over for the mid-tempo and more melodic Don’t Die On Me, before Romero gets to showcase why Richie Blackmore picked him by leading the crusade through Knight Of The Dead.
You could be forgiven for thinking that the revolving door policy of musicians and singers would be to the albums detriment, leaving it sounding disjointed, but it actually the variety helps it not get bogged down with every track sounding the same. Whilst Schenker’s trademark guitar wizardry is undeniably present and correct, he also realises that with the talent he has at his disposal, it doesn’t need to be all about him all the time and the songs don’t get overshadowed with too much fretboard wankery.
Scheepers’ second stint at the mic is for the foot-to-the-floor, bluesy riffs of Devil’s Daughter, then it’s back to Romero for Sail The Darkness, which more than one commentator has remarked could have been written for Dio. Michael Vos lends his pipes to The Queen Of Thorns And Roses, a highlight with it’s bouncy rhythm and 70’s style sing-a-long chorus. Jumping forward a decade to the hair metal scene of the 80’s, the strutting Come On Over would be perfect blaring out over the PA in the type of LA bar where skimpily clad young ladies gyrate round poles.
Immortal rounds off with the Spaghetti western infused Sangria Morte, and then Schenker revisits In Search Of Peace Of Mind, a song that originally featured on the Scorpions’ debut album. “I wrote this song when I was 15 years old, it was my first ever written piece of music which I recorded with SCORPIONS….We re-recorded this song for my 50th anniversary as a celebration and it turned out to be an epic.” For the MSG fan it also features a surprise return for a former vocalist “Gary Barden sings the first verse, continued by Ronnie Romero – and in the end we have Ronnie, Doogie White and Robin McAuley screaming their heads off, as a tribute to my 50th anniversary. Absolutely amazing!”
(3.5 / 5)
