Michael Schenker's Temple Of Rock - Spirit On A Mission (Album Review)
Thursday, 19 March 2015
Written by Simon Ramsay
Photo: Laurence Harvey
It's been heartening to see Michael Schenker bounce back in recent years, but claims this heavy metal guitar god is better than ever are sadly wide of the mark on ‘Spirit On A Mission’, an album that only features fleeting moments of brilliance amid too many forgettable songs.
This is the second album from his Temple Of Rock project, following 2013’s 'Bridge The Gap', and vocalist Doogie White, multi-instrumentalist Wayne Findlay and former Scorpions Francis Buchholz and Herman Rarebell are back for more, with White and Findlay playing a more prominent role in the writing this time.
The opening trio of tracks pick up where their impressive debut left off, with Live and Let Live thundering along on a classic riff towards a cracking chorus, Communion delivering a swaggering metal groove and Vigilante Man highlighting Schenker'sfretboardfury, White's melodic clout and Findlay's spooky keys.
Then things get patchy, and only the chest-thumping Bulletproof matches that opening salvo. Most tracks here feature promising elements that don't cohere into similarly impressive wholes.
Rock This City, for example, has a pile-driving six-string intro but its meandering chorus fails to excite, while Saviour Machine shoots for epic but fails to sustain attention due to another boring hook and muddled narrative.
White's melodies – which were top notch on 'Bridge The Gap' – often miss the mark, while a fondness for spinning the kind of fantastical and apocalyptic imagery that belonged to Ronnie James Dio and the 1970s makes his lyrics difficult to digest.
Such wordplay is classic metal nonsense and can be extremely effective, but when the songs and, in particular, hooks aren't strong enough, references to pilgrims, quests, angels and rainbows feel more overtly ridiculous. Only on the UFO-style Good Times, where he sculpts a grounded and heartfelt yarn about a long lost romance, does he offer something relatable.
Schenker's performance is equally inconsistent and, at times, a little irritating. Throughout, his bruising, bounding riffs and harmony playing are great, particularly on Something of The Night, where his frantic bumblebee intro is truly jaw dropping.
By way of contrast, many of his solos seem deliberately 'anti-guitar hero' as he refuses to unleash the scorching leads that built his reputation during the ‘70s. Worse still, on Wicked he sounds like he's playing along to a completely different tune than the rest of the band. These tracks are screaming out for the mesmerising and fiery solos of yesteryear to elevate them.
Schenker created his 'Temple Of Rock' concept to honour the golden age of rock and metal, but he needs a much stronger collection of songs to do that as even this album's best cuts fail to come anywhere near the game-changing classics of those halcyon days.
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