Tracklist:1. Hour I
2. The Game of Life
3. We Were Born to Fly
4. The Future Never Dies
5. You're Loving Me To Death
6. 321
7. Love Will Keep Us Alive
8. We Will Rise Again
9. Your Last Song
10. Love is War
11. The Cross
12. Humanity
Scorpions... this is Scorpions, right? – 6,5/10
This is exactly what one would say when hearing this album. After the splendid Unbreakable the Scorpions really seemed back to rock the world once more, but now in a more modern way. Its follow-up, which is this album, Humanity Hour I has nothing in common with Unbreakable except for the more modern sound, but then this release is even more modernized. Actually this whole album does not sound like they are the Scorpions. It is modernized in every way and the trademark Scorps sound is gone. Mostly such a change would make me love the album, but Humanity Hour I actually doesn’t do that.
So the Scorpions adopted a modern sound, what do I actually mean? There are traces of downtuned guitars on some songs, the tracks are mostly short and don’t even contain solos and of course there’s this concept. Yes, this is a concept album by the Scorpions. Apparently this concept was the idea of songwriter/producer Desmond Child, who we’ll discuss later on. This concept is about how evil and bad mankind is right now and this is just hour one to our insanity. They believe the worst is yet to come. Well, that’s pretty optimistic, don’t you think? And that’s all made up by a man with vision, this Desmond Child guy, whose fingerprints are on all of the songs. Which brings us to the why and how of the soundchange. The songs are mostly credited for a whole bunch of people and only one bandmember. If the Scorps have stopped writing their own songs, then how can we expect to hear the trademark Scorpions sound? Seriously, this was a sad move.
On to the songs. Even though the overall feel is very modern and not Scorpions-like, it’s not an awful album. The whole army of songwriters did know how to write songs, so it seems. As soon as opener “Hour I” begins we have a bit of a nu-metal feel through our veins. It starts off with a bombarding drum intro, soon accompanied with a heavy drop C guitar riff and a shrieking lead guitar trying to imitate sirens. We are alarmed now and when Klaus comes in to preach of our downfall we finally recognize the band we listen to. Have the Scorpions ever been this heavy before? No way! It’s a cool song, that’s for sure, but it really doesn’t fit the Scorpions. We have a slightly more Scorpionized riff at “The Game of Life”, but the rest of the song continues in the modern feel. Then there are these heavy riffs on “We Were Born to Fly” and “We Will Rise Again”. In a way these songs are great. They are well-composed with good and nice riffs, vocal melodies and arrangements, but unfortunately something is missing. If it’s not the solo that’s missing it’s either something else. There are some radio-friendly modern ballads or pop songs on this album such as “Love Will Keep Us Alive”, “Your Last Song” and “Love is War”. As the titles might suggest, they are about love, but not with the cheesy ‘I want you tonight’ lyrics we are used from the Scorpions. Again, these songs are really nice and they are good songs, but there’s something missing in them. I can’t believe I would ever complain in a review about a band not having its trademark sound, but Humanity Hour I is just not a Scorpions album.
I might be complaining a lot about the lack of Scorpions sound here, but there are a few songs with typical Scorpions lyrics, only a new kind of music as an accompaniment. “You’re Loving Me to Death” for example has lyrics in the vein of 1990’s “Don’t Believe Her” and the terribly cheesy “321” has the well-known ‘I wanna rock’ type of lyrics, which really looks odd compared to the rest of the album. Perhaps it was included to give a short break after all that optimism about humanity? There are two more great songs to discuss and discuss them I will before coming to a close. “The Future Never Dies” is a very catchy powerballad with a hidden hint to the Scorps sound. It comes to your attention immediately when listening because it’s actually very full of heroic melodies and is slightly epic. If only it had a solo... Album closer and second title track “Humanity” is also quite a blast. It begins really gently with some plucking on the strings, then Klaus joins in with his everlasting optimism and from there it bursts into a melodic epic song. Again, all what’s missing is a convincing guitar solo. There’s one big star on this album besides the splendid performance of vocalist Klaus Meine and that is James Kottak on the drums! We get to hear a lot of drumming from him with his bass drums, like on “Hour I” and “Humanity”. He drums very varied and stylish and that’s what I like about drummers.
To come to a close, Humanity Hour I is not a bad album, but it’s not a Scorpions album. They hardly wrote the songs themselves and their fingerprints are missing everywhere. Furthermore there are mostly shorter songs and fewer solos. I guess we have to deal with that and take this album for what it is. Therefore I will not recommend this album to anyone but a die-hard Scorpions fan who likes modern touches.
Strongest tracks: “The Future Never Dies”, “Love is War” and “Humanity”.
Weakest tracks: “321”.
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