Lovedrive Bethesda MD

When a writer does pre-writing exercises, it ismainly to loosen up the creative juices and to get ready for apiece of writing that will become their best work. The Scorpions'Lovedrive is an audio example of this process; while thematerial is not terrible, it definitely is a prelude to what wouldcome later.

The Scorpions recorded these eight songs in fourmonths, adding to a schedule that saw them tour around the world,playing in Moscow before it was okay to do so and creating somegreat slices of heavy arena rock. One could argue that guitaristsRudolf Schenker and Matthias Jabs are synonymous with "great guitarriff."

But the disc starts slowly with "Loving You SundayMorning," which suffers from the mid-tempo crunch when the banddrops the tempo and gets sappy. "Another Piece of Meat," is a solidtrack, one I consider pre-writing for later classics like "No OneLike You." The groove is solid and drummer Herman Rarebell andbassist Francis Buchholz nail the up-tempo shifts, which are moreenergetic than "Loving You Sunday Morning." The lyrics are betteras well.

Also, the ballad "Always Somewhere" is like any othertrack about being on the road and away from loved ones, giving it auniversal appeal because it is about the desolation inside of thesoul when the spark that makes life worthwhile is not around.Vocalist Klaus Meine sounds convincingly alone and sad on thistrack.