Review: Michael Schenker

Michael Schenker
“Thank You 2”
(SPV)

Michael Schenker, for those who don’t know, founded the German rock band The Scorpions in 1971 with his brother Rudolph Schenker at the tender age of 15.  Later, Michael went on to join UFO and later still, in the eighties formed MSG (a.k.a. The Michael Schenker Group).  On this album, “Thank You 2,” a follow up to “Thank You,” Michael finds himself in a mellow, far from hard rock, mood and the results are a little dull – lots and lots of repetition, no builds, no climaxes and not a hell of a lot of variation.  He is quite an adept little guitar player mind you but he shows next to nothing in the guts department and that, baby, is what it’s all about.  You’ve got to have guts, nerve, daring, bravado, chutzpah, man, motherfucking chutzpah!  I can go listen to Bach’s lute suites and hear more rawer intestinal fortitude in a half-minute than over the course of Schenker’s entire album. Why, precisely, anyone would want to waste their time, energy and money on this is beyond me.  Go buy an early Scorpions album instead because this is just ridiculous hokum: a merciless series of exercises in ostentatious manual dexterity, slack-jawed strumming and meandering songwriting that goes nowhere slow.