Moment Of Glory - Scorpions & Berliner Philharmoniker (The)

Author's product rating:   

Originality	Average
Lyrics	Standard
Quality and consistency of tracks	Flawless
How does it compare to the artist's other releases	Good
Value for Money

Advantages:	A new sound of old loved songs, welcomed by fans and those who enjoy that kind of music .
Disadvantages:	The idea of combinating rock and symphonic doesn't seem original .

Recommend to potential buyers:

yes

Full review

The pre-history of this album should be started like this: “Once upon a time there lived Apocalyptica. And its existence never allowed the old rockers to stay calm...” yeah, from the moment as this quartet appeared on the stage and became known, the old mastodonts started to move again and understood that there’s still one more undiscovered way to conquer the audience back: a symphonic orchestra and beloved them with a guitar in front.

The pioneer of this row of restoring popularity was Metallica, who launched and average quality double disc S&M. After a while, a Scorpions’ album, proudly entitled “Moment Of Glory”, came out. Choosing a “companion” for their symphonic album, Scorpions didn’t come down to anywhere but Berlin Philarmonic Orchestra.

First thing to mention, the material is good. Apart from those where the orchestra is just repeating the main melody in behind, enriching the sound, this time special variations and arrangements apear in orchestra. The album is organized as a one solid symphony, with an encore, interludes between songs and a coda. It’s no surprise, because the arrangement was done by a famous conductor Christian Kolonowitz from the Philarmony of Vienna.

What can be said? An all-prize lottery. A hundred percent success at the consumer’s, as any “best of” compilation could be. A new sound of an old material is especially attractive, and the songs are chosen in an unusual way. Together with expected evergreen ballads like Still Loving You, Lady Starlight, Send Me An Angel (the last one brings a nice surprise with sweet opera-like voice of Zucchero) and a long Wind Of Change epic, you can find several rocking pieces like Big City Nights and Rock You Like A Hurricane, in its new reading, called Hurricane 2000.

Following the “best of” tradition, Scorps have also incluided a new song, a title track “Moment Of Glory”. Here, a good old band recipe is used, which is creation of beautiful rock ballads. To author’s mind, this song is quite simple and sounds more like a love theme from a Disney cartoon final, when a big bad wolf is gone, and the happy couple celebrates its reunion. The illusion is also supported by an angel choir (or a pokemon choir, depending on the cartoon idea), whose role is played by a Vienna boys choir.

To sum up, Moment Of Glory can be called one of the best and high-quality specimens of this genre. Remembering Wind of Change, cast by Russian thematic, this time Russian idea comes out again, when instrumental “Crossfire” slowly turns into an all-time Russian classic “Podmoskovniye Vechera”. Bravo!