739. McAuley Schenker Group / MSG [McAuley-Schenker Group]. 1992. 1.5/5

Having listened to this album a couple of times, you can't help but wonder whatever happened to the man who had been so impressive in bands like UFO, Scorpions and his own M.S.G. No, not this M.S.G, but the Michael Schenker Group, when the songs had some depth and brilliance, and Michael reigned supreme on the guitar. Now into the third release from the remonikered McAuley Schenker Group, and it all seems to be going a little pear shaped.

Even though I can hear and admit the limitations of the first release Perfect Timing, I still enjoy it. It's an album from that era which spoke to me at the time, thus nostalgia plays a part. The follow up Save Yourself had some good tracks, but also fell apart for the majority of the album. Here, MSG [McAuley-Schenker Group] sounds amazing musically, with Robin and Michael joined by former Dokken bassist Jeff Pilson and future Scorpions drummer James Kottak - but oh dear, whatever happened to song writing?
We are treated to some shocking songs here, such that you have to wonder at what market they were aiming this record. "When I'm Gone" and "Nightmare" are truly average slow ballads, surely purpose written to eventually have their day as acoustic numbers on a later release, as was the rage in the early 1990's (this of course did come to pass). I would call them gut-wrenching only to describe the way I feel sick to the stomach whenever I hear them. To this you can add "This Night Is Gonna Last Forever". Awful. Truly awful. Now I know the subject matter of this band is different from Schenker's earlier bands, and that the lyrical content is therefore of a different direction. But honestly this combined with the wimpy, limp and steel-less music on these songs is catastrophic. The songs that do attempt to elevate themselves to the status of a rock song (and that's being generous) have nothing of any value. There are no hooks, nothing that asks you to remember this song, to play along with it, to sing the nonsensical rubbish lyrics that are a part of them.
The irony probably is that Schenker's guitaring makes a return to something like front and centre on this album, whereas on the past couple of albums it has really taken a back seat to be a part of the background of the soft metal songs that have been written, rarely breaking out for more than a few seconds to poke it's nose out of the water. While the song structures here are generally the same, Michael does have solo spots where the real reason we buy his albums comes to the fore. It's just a shame that it all seems buried in average and uninteresting songs.

When this first came out, and I (unfortunately) paid for this album, and then put it securely in my shelves after the first half a dozen listens, I hoped that it would get better with time. That the next time I gave it a try, it would have gotten better, that it would have grown on me. I don't recall when that time was, but I'm pretty sure that listening to it now to review and re-rate it, it has been something close to 15 years since I last heard it. And "Crazy" is still a terrible song, and "Nightmare" is still a nightmare, and this still is one of those albums that I can never get my money back for.

Rating:  Bang bang, shoot 'em all down  1.5/5