575. Scorpions / Sting in the Tail. 2010. 3/5

There has probably been more publicity surrounding the fact that this album apparently signals the final act for the Scorpions as a band than anything else, and perhaps it is this smoke screen that is being used to hide the fact that it has some failings.
The announcement that this would be the band’s final album, hoping to ‘retire’ while still at the top of their game, certainly drew some interest from me. However, I was more interested to see how they would follow up their finest album in almost 30 years, 2007’s Humanity: Hour 1.

Following on from the breaking of the Scorpions mould on their last album, this is a follow up that plays it straight down the line in order to try and keep all their fans of all genres happy, and in the process really not making anyone excited. The opening songs prove to be very much in the role of their typical nineties stuff, in a hard rock mode but without the great anthems that they flooded us with during the 1980's. "Raised on Rock", "Sting in the Tail", "No Limit" and "Rock Zone" leave you in no doubt that the band is trying to reinvest their past sound into their current music. There are also the typical Scorpions power ballads, which, I must say, don't quite hit the mark this time around.
In fact, the whole album is just off the track, and in trying to tie down what it is that just doesn't make it for me, I can come to a couple of conclusions - it is a very generic album, and it’s obvious that the band has played it very safe in the writing process. Being their final release, they have obviously gone out and tried to capture both lyrically and musically the best and most successful of their past, and recreate it here as a fitting finale for themselves and their fans. Though I hesitate to use the word, some of it is quite boring because of that, and in essence brings to the table the kind of emotion they were inevitably trying to prevent.
It's not a bad album, but it won't be memorable for the music, but only because (at this point) it will be their final release.

If they had announced that they were calling it a day after Humanity: Hour 1 I would have kicked up a stink, suggesting that they still had plenty left in the tank. Having now listened to Sting in the Tail a dozen times, I can honestly suggest that the band gets out and does a farewell World Tour – including coming to Australia, because we've only been waiting 30+ years – and then take a well earned rest, because maybe the bottom of the well is in sight.