Fly To The Rainbow [Import]

The second Scorpions album is a welcome shift from the spaced-out "Krautrock" of their debut into a solid heavy rock vein; in fact, opening number 'Speedy's Coming' is without question a pure heavy metal number, racing out of the blocks with fiery guitars and a frenetic rhythm. The rest of the album doesn't match 'Speedy's...' sheer intensity, but there's still plenty of high-grade heaviness on offer, albeit of a rather more psychedelic leaning. This is mainly due to Uli Jon Roth's Hendrix-fixated but totally involving and hugely impressive lead guitar work, although some of the vocal deliveries and harmonies also help create a rather unusual sonic patchwork. 'They Need a Million' is one such example, the sound still struggling to break free of the band's sixties roots, but although third track 'Drifting Sun' is also undoubtedly rooted in the era of LSD, it soars to new frontiers. The only song on the album penned solely by Roth, this is a tower of effects-laden guitar virtuosity and rolling, rollicking percussion - an undoubted highpoint of the album. Against this, 'Fly People Fly' could sound rather insipid; fortunately, Klaus Meine's vocals are finding their true strengths even at this early stage in the band's recording career and he carries the song admirably, with some lovely (if typically noisy) guitar accompaniment from Roth.

'This is My Song' and 'Far Away' are agreeable enough melodic rockers (the latter in possession of some quite charming vocal work), but the album's key moment is at the end with the title track. At a majestic nine-and-a-half minutes, 'Fly to the Rainbow' is a Roth-era Scorpions classic, starting out life acoustically and then moving to standard mid-paced hard rock territory before soaring up and away, across the mountains and into the heavens. Again, it's Uli Jon Roth who shows the way, ruling the song and dominating the finale, and he even carries off his vocal parts with credibility (a definite rarity, as any Scorpions fan will attest).

In fact, it's fair to say that 'Fly to the Rainbow' wouldn't be half the album it is without Roth's contribution; whilst one can never overlook the songwriting of Rudolph Schenker and Klaus Meine, it's their flamboyant and inspired lead guitarist who dominates here. 'Fly to the Rainbow' isn't as accomplished a record as its successors and if you're looking to explore early Scorpions music, you'd do better by starting with 'In Trance' or 'Virgin Killer'. Nonetheless, there's plenty to recommend it to any fan of early Seventies heavy rock.

I own all the 70`s albums of the band.Surelly , this one is the best of those.The songs have much dynamic and the compositions are clever and trully classic rock style.The voice of Meine magnetised you and the guitar of Roth travelled you in other space.The band then , had a lot of energy and inspiration!Especially , there are 2 or 3 songs that supposed to be ``diamonds`` of the hard rock of senenties.This is a really flying album and the limits of musicians endless.Buy it right now and burn the speakers.

This was the second hard rock scorpion's release. the first is the more psyh rock flavored 'lonesome crow'. This one is more accessible and has the classic song 'speedys coming'. The rest are more hendrix inspired and the band had yet to get it's true bearings. The next release would see that change into a fully modern metal style that was the scorpions own. Gone would be the long psych rockers like 'fly to the rainbow' and instead the hot guitar driven sounds of what would really be modern metal would come to the fore. This is still good early metal though and a must for any scorps fan. Casual fans who are not psych rock fans might enjoy the groups catalog after this one though. But if you give it a chance you will find a great cd of well crafted and sung songs in the early metal / early 1970's style of hard rock.