Scorpions

On their studio first outing in three years, Germany's seemingly eternal Scorpions keep the sound a perfect balance between nu metal guitar crunch and '80s heavy metal melodies. Humanity Hour, Vol. 1 is a worthy if not utterly successful musical follow-up to 2004's Unbreakable – a record that saw the band coming back to its strengths after a long bout of wandering about in the creative desert. Humanity Hour, Vol. 1 is a collaboration between the band and co-producers James Michael and Desmond Child…

One does an aural double take upon hearing the opening bars of “Raised on Rock,” the first track from the Scorpions Sting in the Tail. Rudolph Schenker's opening power chord riff and guitar tone sound like something from 1976’s Virgin Killer, or 1979’s Lovedrive…

It's quite difficult to find a young person who knows about the Scorpions. Even when their careers were peaking in the '80s, they were never widely recognized, existing always as more of an underground band. The lack of hit singles produced by the group is by no means a judgment of its talent, however, as Deadly Sting: The Mercury Years proves. Some may find the fact that Mercury made the compilation a double-disc set surprising – again due to the band's small following – but the album is far better than the single-disc collection Best of Rockers 'n' Ballads. Following chronologically from 1979 to 1993 (thus covering the years in which the band enjoyed its most success), Deadly Sting rips through the favorites "Loving You Sunday Morning," "The Zoo," "Blackout," "No One Like You," "Big City Nights," "Still Loving You," "Rock You Like a Hurricane," "Rhythm of Love," "Wind of Change," and "Don't Believe Her," finally concluding with two unreleased recordings from 1995.