Michael Schenker - My Years with UFO (2024)

Country: Germany
Style: Hard Rock
Rating: 7/10
Release Date: 20 Sep 2024
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Michael Schenker has been busy over the past decade, with a string of albums from a whole bunch of incarnations of his band, whether it's Michael Schenker's Temple of Rock, Michael Schenker Fest or the good old Michael Schenker Group. Here it's just Michael Schenker, because there are a slew of guest vocalists and musicians to help out revisit his glorious early UFO days fifty years ago with a set of old favourites.

I don't tend to review albums in track order because there are usually better ways to handle them, but I feel like it's needed here because these are such well loved classics that it's going to be easy to get them horribly wrong, meaning that we go into each with both hope and fear and which that track turns out to generate will flavour the next. Fortunately it starts out rather well, even though there was plenty of risk involved.

That's because the first guest vocalist is Dee Snider, a huge talent but not a logical choice to take on a Phil Mogg vocal. However, he does a shockingly good job on Natural Thing, and Joel Hoekstra helps the guitar to feel nice and crunchy. Joey Tempest is much closer to Mogg's style on Only You Can Rock Me, perhaps only Kai Hansen coming closer on Rock Bottom. There's a subtle bass from Deep Purple's Roger Glover, who produced the first MSG album, and Derek Sherinian elevates the second half with his keyboard work. He's one of three musicians here who are present throughout and, while this is always Schenker's show, Sherinian shines throughout. Barry Sparks on bass and Brian Tichy on drums complete the core line-up.

So far, so good, but next up is Doctor Doctor, which is one of the really big ones. I certainly got the tingles when it kicked in and there's glorious guitarwork and lovely keyboards, but I wasn't a huge fan of Carmine Appice's rolling drums, which broke the flow for me more than once, and Joe Lynn Turner, who I'd have expected to have been a highlight going, is the least important aspect of the song, even though he does a good job. I preferred Mother Mary, with Erik Grönwall, lately of Skid Row and soon to be the vocalist on the next original Schenker album. He's decent throughout but excellent on the chorus. Schenker duels with Slash on guitar to take the song home and that's just as good as you're expecting.

This Kid's is a deep cut, the closer from Force It. It's the only song here where I wasn't immediately singing along. Biff Byford is another legend who doesn't remotely sound like Phil Mogg but wisely he doesn't try to and he sounds great against a forceful backdrop. Unsurprisingly it's a merger of UFO and Saxon but that's fine and the instrumental section with Schenker and Sherinian, taking a lead role, is joyous. That's five tracks and it's been impressive thus far. Schenker sounds excellent, of course, and the guest choices, even where they don't seem to make sense, mostly work.

So to Love to Love, the song I dreaded most here for a couple of reasons. It's one of the most iconic hard rock songs ever recorded, Steve Harris of Iron Maiden calling it the very best of them, and it's not one that should be messed with. That said, the guest vocalist here is Axl Rose and that hardly inspired confidence. I tried to maintain an open mind, because he worked in AC/DC far better than I expected and he does better here than I thought he would too, but not enough. This is Schenker's song with credit to Sherinian again and once more the ending is fantastic. My wife rang during the closing solo and I didn't answer. Some things should be kept sacred.

Talking of sacred, next up is Lights Out with one of the greatest guitar solos ever recorded, so far up the list that it was playing in my head while I was listening to Schenker and John Norum miss it here. Jeff Scott Soto brings the voice and he's too forceful. It's a decent cover but it emphatically isn't the original and I felt that far more on this track than any other. Fortunately it's followed by Rock Bottom, which is eleven minutes long, as it tended to be live, and that has to mean oodles of guitar. Kai Hansen impresses on vocals that are a slightly metallic Mogg, and also has a lot of fun with Schenker on guitar during those extended solos.

Turner and Appice return on Too Hot to Handle, the only guests to appear on more than one track, and they're joined by Adrian Vandenberg. Sadly, what I noted about them both on Doctor Doctor also applies here. Fortunately Let It Roll really rolls; in fact, it gallops. Michael Voss does a strong job with the vocals. Of all people, Stephen Pearcy doesn't do a bad job on Shoot Shoot either, even though he's another strange choice to tackle a Mogg vocal. I can't say it works for me the way that Schenker's guitar does but it's an interesting approach and the grit in his voice oddly works.

And so there are a lot of surprises here. Dee Snider and Biff Byford work wonderfully, even if they shouldn't, while Joe Lynn Turner oddly doesn't, even though he should. Axl Rose is easily the least successful guest but his bandmate Slash is one of my highlights, along with Kai Hansen, who really shocked me with his contribution, not because he's good, because I already knew that, but by how well he fit on a UFO covers album. Lights Out was the least successful cover for me, while Only You Can Rock Me may be the best and This Kid's was the most effectively different. Inherently, though, your mileage may vary.