4 keepers
keeper avg .444
The speed-metal title song**** sets the tone for Scorpions's eighth album; coke is presumably primary composer Rudolf Schenker's drug of choice these days, as "Can't Live Without You", "Now!", and "Dynamite" also prioritize speed. Drummer Herman Rarebell throws in some syncopated rhythmic accents that save all of these songs from being dull, though as much as he tries to dress up the verses, the vocal/guitar unison chorus of "Can't Live Without You" is conspicuously simple. Power-ballad "No One Like You" was an important step on the way to the thundering "Rock You Like a Hurricane" (1984) and was the band's first charting single in the US, though the combination of Schenker's bludgeoning riff with Matthias Jabs's incessant wailing gets old after awhile. The following track "You Give Me All I Need" is similarly mid-tempo, repetitive, and nearly sinks the album side, which fortunately concludes with the barn-burning "Now!"****
On the flip-side, the comically aggressive (in tempo and lyrically) "Dynamite"**** ups the tempo to Motorhead / ludicrous speed, so that all the perpetually fiddle-y Jabs has time to do is blast out some unison bends. "China White"***** is Dynamite's brutal opposite, as Schenker unleashes a stomp-march riff that cycles in a relentless ouroboros, while Klaus Meine wails in fear of nuclear annihilation. The album's only true clunker is Rarebell's mindless groupie-conquest ditty "Arizona." The side closes with the ballad "When the Smoke Is Going Down," a template for future classic "Still Loving You" (1984), right down to Schenker's expressive but occasionally janky leads.
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