Band:	Scorpions
Album:	Rock Believer
Style:	Hard rock
Release date:	February 2022

Disc I
01. Gas In The Tank
02. Roots In My Boots
03. Knock 'Em Dead
04. Rock Believer
05. Shining Of Your Soul
06. Seventh Sun
07. Hot And Cold
08. When I Lay My Bones To Rest
09. Peacemaker
10. Call Of The Wild
11. When You Know (Where You Come From)

Disc II
01. Shoot For Your Heart
02. When Tomorrow Comes
03. Unleash The Beast
04. Crossing Borders
05. When You Know (Where You Come From) [Acoustic version]
06. Out Go The Lights [Japanese bonus]
07. Language Of The Heart [French bonus]
08. Hammersmith [UK bonus]

After two albums that clearly spelled "final album", Scorpions release another album, and something tells me that not even this might be the "final Scorpions" album.

Scorpions is one of the most well-known names in the metal world, and also one of the oldest. And since Black Sabbath called it quits, there's been fewer and fewer metal bands that can go around celebrating 50th album anniversaries. I've reviewed some of them, and there's certainly some others like Uriah Heep and Alice Cooper still going around, but with some form of the band existing as far back as 1965, Scorpions just might be the oldest of the bunch. Sure, nothing remains recorded from those first years of the band, but it's a bit of a shocker that the band might actually still be around to celebrate 60 years as a band.

So it's no wonder that they still believe in rock music. They've been doing it all their lives. With the two previous albums all being described as final album, I don't feel the same thing about Rock Believer. And I think that what will eventually be the final Scorpions album will only end up being their final in hindsight, the same way Bad Magic was the final Motörhead. And with Mikkey Dee jumping ship from Motörhead to Scorpions, I wouldn't be surprised if he stays with them 'til the end, only to jump ship and find another band to accompany 'til the end. And Rock Believer also unintentionally marks the 50th anniversary of Scorpions' debut album, Lonesome Crow, an album I avoided until now because of low rating and a different sound. Listening to the two, it is a bit awe-inspiring that they're half a century apart. Sure, two of the members on the debut faded into obscurity or left the music industry, another one joined UFO and started a whole bunch of solo bands, but Rudolf and Klaus remained.

You probably didn't need the history lesson. If you're invested in this album, you probably already knew that. Because as good as this album is, I don't see this album meaning much outside of Scorpions' core fanbase. It's been decades since the band tried to do anything to reinvent their sound, so you pretty much know what to expect here. Even a mild awareness of Scorpions' music is enough to guess what Rock Believer sounds like, and I find it near impossible to imagine someone not having said awareness. So going into this review, I feel like my role here is a bit unnecessary. Scorpions won't care about my review, and they certainly don't need the publicity. It's not like their profile doesn't have reviews of previous albums. And it's not like you need me to describe what the album is like.

And yet, I found myself strangely endeared by it in a way I wasn't really with Return To Forever. Which is strange, since the first four songs on the album are so off-putting to me. They're the kind of self-congratulatory rock music that every rock bands needs to make about rocking or every heavy/power metal band that needed to put "metal" in their song title. It's the kind of thing you expect, but you just gotta tolerate. But then "Shining Of Your Soul" comes along, and lo and behold, this is a song that actually sounds vital and creative. I probably like it more because it's darker, and probably its impact is even bigger due to (excuse the blatant ageism) the geezer bait that came before it, but it really works. "Seventh Sun" then comes around, and it's also a surprisingly heavy song, where the marching guitars and bass rhythms create a pretty compelling atmosphere. I won't go into details on every track, but I'll just say that by that time I was sold, and also convinced to skip the first four tracks on further revisits.

The core album is only 44 minutes, but the deluxe edition also includes twenty more minutes of extra songs (and an acoustic version of the closing ballad). The latter is the only version available on streaming services (as of now), so I'm going to assume that that's the one that the readers are most likely to listen to. It is somewhat baffling to me that those first four songs (ok, maybe "Knock 'em Dead" isn't as bad as the rest) could easily be replaced by the superior songs on the bonus disc. A lot of late career albums are way too long for their own good, and I understand that bands are trying to make up for how long they take between albums, but Rock Believer really would've worked as the 40-something minutes album as originally intended, if there the appropriate switches in the tracklist were made.

Ok, that's the songs themselves, but I think the band is in pretty good shape. Klaus' vocals have aged, but the tear of age isn't as noticeable as with other vocalists his age, and the autotune here isn't nearly as bad as what I heard on the latest Ozzy Osbourne. If I didn't pay attention, I could almost be fooled that some of these songs were recorded decades ago, and that goes for both Klaus (who is most susceptible to his old age of 73 showing) and the rest of the band. The riffs and solos show that the guitarist didn't write this on autopilot, the bass is not neglected, and Mikkey Dee is a great addition. And for once, I really don't feel indifferent to the existence of such an album. I'm not gonna give a "showing the youngsters how it's done" bullshit, nor a "showing old bands how to do great late career albums", because the latest Uriah Heep, Blue Öyster Cult and Lucifer's Friend were also pretty good. All that I'm gonna say is that there's more to celebrate in Rock Believer than the band's history and the rock music that they believe in.

Maybe the real rock believer is the friends we made along the way.