Triple post FTW!!
I'm through my first listen to Schenker's newie and it's much more my cup of tea than the UFO. It does have the odd plodder (Brent tunes out) but for the most part it's a nice combination of bands like MSG , UFO, Thin Lizzy etc.....one track has a distinct Rainbow vibe too. I seem to be saying this a lot lately but it's 3 or 4 tracks too long. If they'd stopped at track 8 my rating would be somewhere close to 90%. As it is though tracks 9 through 11 are IMHO filler and the final track sorta gets things back on track a bit.
OK, now I'm through my first listen. This album is awesome!!
Brent, the latter part of the album didn't drag for me as it did for you, but generally speaking, ALL albums are 3-4 songs too long.
Now I feel about Schenker the way you/Brent feels about Eddie Van Halen.
Michael Schenker is my absolute favorite guitar player. My biggest problem over his career is that he is very song oriented, and rarely takes the selfish approach and shows you why he's so freaking amazing. To me, that's led to a lot of mediocre stuff. And while the first Temple Of Rock album was all over the place, these last two have been fantastic.
I think the songs on Bridge The Gap are better written and more memorable, and while Schenker sounds great, he stops just short of going off. But he is the most unleashed on Spirit that I can literally ever remember. I'm thinking as far back as Obsession. Seriously.
The album loses points for some cheesy lyrics.
Edit: And there is no way that this is Bucholz and Rarebell is it?? Wow! Especially Rarebell. I thought he sucked in Scorpions. Maybe they are responsible for Schenker's inspiration..
93%