For the follow up album, another change was forced upon the band. Drummer Jurgen Rosenthal left the band because he was drafted into the Army. He was replaced by Rudy Lenners, another fellow German, and by the time the band entered the studio they were in a much better place. Having toured together now on the back of “Fly to the Rainbow”, they felt like a band and were comfortable within themselves moving forward. The other move that proved to be an important one not only for this album but for those moving forward was the appointment of Dieter Dierks as producer. His influence, not only on this album but for the next decade was an enorous part of the rising success the band experienced.
As such, everything was set up for Scorpions to truly find their feet with their third studio album, and album that with the firm base of the band and its new producer, would be released in September 1975 under the name “In Trance”.
The album kicks off with one of the band’s most interesting songs, “Dark Lady”. It is a typically offbeat Uli Jon Roth track, incorporating his amazing guitaring style that doesn’t seem to stick to the road, it is always looking for off ramps to explore. It is a first for the band with both Uli and Klaus sharing lead vocals. You have Uli on the verses and Klaus screaming on the chorus, shrieking to the heavens. Ui’s solo pieces are just as entertaining. It’s a truly unique song, one that challenges everything that the band has done to this point, and opens the album in an infectious way. To then move from the outwardly raucous beginning to the title track that follows is something that probably shouldn’t work. The quiet almost acoustic opening passage of “In Trance” is a complete opposite to what has come from the opening, and yet, here for the first time, Scorpions make it work, and indeed make it an absolute classic. Not a power ballad per se but with tidings towards that direction, “In Trace” highlights what the writing core of Schenker and Meine produces, a melodic and harmonic track both musically and vocally. The harmony vocals from Klaus in the chorus are spectacular, and the addition of the keys that complements and in no way overpower the beauty of the song are sublime. The power comes from the song, not any singular piece or part of the composition. Scorpions would become one of the greatest composers and writers of power ballads through the years, and while this song doesn’t really classify under that banner it showcases everything great that would be utilised in those songs in the future. As the benchmark, it radiates its aura here. “Life’s Like a River” is another softer rock track that is highlighted by the terrific rhythm of Francis’s basslines and Lenners’ drumbeat, which give the song its deep meaningful sound all the way though. Uli’s solo and Klaus’s manoeuvring vocals highlight the change in tone through the song. This is interesting as it has co-writing credits for Uli and Rudolph, but also Dieter Dierks’s wife Corina Fortmann.
“Top of the Bill” immediately comes in with that wonderful Schenker rhythm guitar riff, the type that he writes so well, that are immediately invoke a reaction that requires air guitar and a mimicking with your voice. While it may sound simple, it is the perfect structure for a Scorpions song, with Burchholtz’s bass running alongside. Klaus sings to the ceiling on this track, telling the story of the rock and roll life, trying to be top of the bill, and the vocal harmonies are superb and add to the dynamic. And Uli plays out the back half of the song in his uniquely fluid style of solo that ends the track on a high. Still a great song in the Scorpions catalogue. This then sweeps back into another slower less energetic tune as per earlier in the album with “Living and Dying”. It is a brooding moody track that sludges through the mire to complete the first side of the album.
Side 2 opens with another killer track, “Robot Man”. Here we are treated to a song that sounds nothing like what has come before it, the guitars and drums drive us out of the blocks at pace, the combination of Schenker’s fast guitar work and Klaus’s vocals picks up the energy and pace from the outset. Klaus and Rudolph showcasing the other side of their writing partnership, the ability to produce a high octane track that pushes the bands boundaries. Then we have the other side of Uli’s writing with the ballad “Evening Wind”, an atmospheric opening heavy on the bass, and back to a morbidly slow pace where everything seems drawn out, Klaus’s vocals and Uli’s guitar solo included. It’s a very blues based song that does brings thoughts of Deep Purple and Led Zeppelin in places. As it fades out, we have the introduction of “Sun in My hand”, which does have a bassline and guitar riff sound that is derivative of other bands of the era, one that is basically repeated through the course of the track while Uli squeals and solos his guitar over the top. The lead vocal is also provided by Uli, which brings the song down in both energy and inspiration. Again, the question can be asked that if you have Klaus Meine in your band, why do you need anyone else providing lead vocals on any track? These two Uli penned tracks are the longest on the album as well, and they do both tend to overstay their welcome. The second of the Roth and Schenker songs is “Longing for Fire”, which is fine, but it just isn’t an inspiring sound like the songs on side one of the album. Francis’s bass is very high in the mix here and sounds good, and Uli’s solo to play out the song again is a highlight. But there is a modicum of averageness about the songs as a whole. And the album then closes out with another Uli track, this time an instrumental titled “Night Lights”. It’s a pretty song, almost a singular playoff between lead guitar and bass guitar. It is that slow, mid-tempo track with dreamlike qualities, almost enough to send you off to sleep by. Is that the way you want a Scorpions album to finish? Given down the track they almost always ended with the ballad, perhaps it is one and the same.
For all those playing at home, you will have heard on the very recent episode I did on Scorpions second live album “World Wide Live” that it was my true introduction to the band, and that everything that I discovered came after that. When it came to the 1970’s albums, including “In Trance”, that was quite a few years after that fact. I had happily sat with the 1980’s second phase of the band’s career albums for quite some time, and not really given those early albums much thought at all, until I then got another album that I have reviewed on this podcast all the way back in January, episode number 6 of this season, called “A Tribute to the Scorpions”, which had a wide range of Scorpions songs covered by other bands, some well known, others not so much. And, what I discovered on that album was not only new bands I needed to check out, but some great songs that I only had a minor grasp on. And it was at this point that I decided that I needed to invest in those first five studio albums, along with the first live album, from the band, and see what I had missed along the way.
“In Trance” is an interesting fulcrum for this lineup of the band, of the Uli Jon Roth years. Michael Schenker had been in the band for the debut album and was a heavy influence in the writing. On “Fly to the Rainbow” he had moved on to UFO, but in agreeing to let him go he had had to help with writing that album, which meant Uli only had one writing credit on that album, even though his guitaring was noticeably different and a major part of the sound of that album. Here on “In Trance”, we have the first teu album of this line up, with Schenker and Meiene writing together on one hand, and most Uli Jon Roth on his own on the other. And this created the different pathways that helped create the uniqueness of this band. Both writing teams produced both genres of tracks – the hard rock to heavy songs and the slower to ballad songs – but they did it in their own way. “Dark Lady” and “Robot Man” for instance, which open up either side of the album, are similar in pace and heaviness, but are different because of the different writers. The same can be said in comparing “Sun in My Hand” and “Living and Dying”. This is where the band moved on this album, and it can be argued that it is more authentic as a result.
Having had the album out again, for the first time in a while, over the last few days, I find that there are songs that stand out more than others. I question – as I almost always do – the decision to have fast paced energetic songs immediately followed by softer quieter and slower tracks, and then back again. Some albums are good enough structurally to be able to handle these changes without by default losing focus. Others are not. Having the momentum of the album drained or constantly changed may be something that some people enjoy. For me it is often an album killer. There is some truth in that for me with “In Trance”, but I must say that I can overlook that when it comes to this album. I’d prefer it structured another way, but that is not how the bad wanted it to be, and when it comes to the Scorpions I will allow it. Perhaps it is just because I don’t listen to this album as much as I do others, you know, those from the 1980’s that I mostly grew up with. With “In Trance”, when I DO put it on to listen to it, I let it flow as it is put out there.
This is an album that the Scorpions fans who are bigger fans of the 1970’s decade Uli Jon Roth years love to a fault. And I can understand why. It has all of those qualities that make it one of their best of that era. It also has some of their best songs of the era, “Dark Lady” and “In Trance” and the brilliant “Top of the Bill”. It is, remarkably, now 50 years old, and that in itself is something to ponder, to consider how an album of this type has weathered over the massive changes in the music world since its conception. As it turns out, it has weathered pretty well.
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