If you thought the Scorpions always sounded like they did on the song "Rock You Like A Hurricane", you'd be greatly mistaken. While they became famous toward the end of the 70s and largely throughout the 80s and beyond, their 1972 debut simply sounds nothing like it. What you will hear is a very unique album with a very distinct early 70s hard rock sound. It sounds like something that Led Zeppelin would have made - which is amazing. It contains elements of blues, and especially jazz. Often the songs on Lonesome Crow will deviate from their original rythyms and go off on a jam, and then suddenly return to the original song progression - which is clearly influenced from jazz. It's really a tour de force performance by the band.

     Every musician is in top notch form here. The dynamic abilities to craft such avant garde music is incredible. The only two remaining members from the debut album are singer Klaus Meine and rythym guitarist Rudolf Schenker. About Meine, a truly awesome singer, sounds much different here than he normally does on every future album since. Normally he dwells in a high tenor vocal range, but here, his tone is much deeper at times, more so than any other time in his career. His voice booms, it echoes, it commands. Upon a first listen, you wouldn't recognize it as Klaus Meine, but with more exposure to the album, you can surely tell. He does visit his high tenor self - and it's awesome.

     The real star of this album is lead guitarist Michael Schenker, who is Rudolf's younger brother. Michael Schenker was a guitar virtuoso who carries this album with his truly impressive and wowing solos. Unfortunately, Michael had a tenuous stay in the band due to his alcoholism and eventually departed from the band for good following 1979. He went ahead and launched a fairly successful solo career though. Anyway, his work though on Lonesome Crow is brilliant - along with the rest of the band.

     It turns out that this album was actually used as the soundtrack to a German film entitled Das Kaite Paradies. I never heard of the film until I did a little more research on Lonesome Crow. In any case, this is such a unique work in their library - with its nuances of jazz, blues, psychedlic rock, jam band, hard rock - it's truly great. I scored it fairly high on this review, and you may be wondering...is this the best Scorpions album ever? Well, I wouldn't say so - but I scored it high based on its own musical merits. There have been many terrific Scorpions records, and this is one of the their best, but ultimately not their best. I highly recommend though! I truly do.

     It took a few listens before I really felt I was able to appreciate this album. Initially I was turned off because it sounded nothing like the great Scorpions we all know. But I felt I was able to appreciate their roots and to see how they have evolved so much over the years. This album breaks their convention before they were able to even form their conventions. So who knows how a casual fan will receive this record because it is so different. If you invest some time, you will see the aesthetic power of this classic album.

TRACK HIGHLIGHTS:

"Inheritance"

"I'm Goin' Mad"

"Leave Me"

"It All Depends"

"In Search of the Peace of Mind"

"Lonesome Crow"

-Kurt L.

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