Away Team

Dark Star Records

Rating: 3 out of 10

You know the old saying  “Never judge a book by it’s cover”? Well, when it comes to Herman Ze German‘s latest offering “Take It As It Comes”, you can throw that philosophy right out the window.  I have to admit, I was anticipating something good from the former Scorpions stickman…I mean why wouldn’t I?  Herman Rarebell helped write such classics as “Another Piece of Meat”, “Blackout”, and “Rock You Like a Hurricane” (A song that this album makes you want to forget).

That anticipation went away the moment I received this disc.  Upon seeing the cheesy vampire themed cover art, I thought to myself “This can’t be good.”, but remember “Never judge a book by it’s cover”…right???  Wrong.  The nightmare begins with the title track, in which Herman begs us to “Take It As It Comes”.  I was about ready to do just that before…was that a saxophone I just heard?  Are you kidding me?  I had to stop the CD and eject it, just to make sure nobody was playing a cruel joke on me and inserted the soundtrack to “St. Elmo’s Fire”.   

The “brass section” doesn’t let up, however…we hear it on the next two tracks “Don’t Lose Your Trust” and “Rough Job”, which reek of mediocre garage band rock.   But wait, there’s more to this story, the sax is being played by none other than Claudia Raab, Rarebell‘s girlfriend.  Now it makes sense, a broken down, pussy-whipped rock star puts out a shitty album for “love”. 

We move on to Track 5, “Your Love Is Hurting”, which is a song I really want to like.  Musically, it is a cross between Ozzy’s “Road To Nowhere” and Aerosmith’s “Amazing”, but lyrically it sounds like something I heard on a recent episode of Spongebob Squarepants. (If you have young kids, you know exactly which episode I’m referring to).

After shining a dim light on things, we are hit with “Freak Show”, a catchy, albeit cheesy track that keeps the light shining before casting us into the darkness that is to come.  After two more cuts of the status-quo, we get to perhaps my most anticipated song of the album, “Rock You Like a Hurricane”.  That’s right, a remake of the 1984 Scorpions classic, done by one of the men who originally penned it, so it must be good.  Wrong again.  The intro sounds like a slightly industrialized version of the original, and then…Herman sings.  What a fucking disgrace.  He tries to do the whole spoken word thing, and ends up sounding like a Transylvanian Micro-Machines man.  He goes and fucks it up even further by letting his girlfriend play that damn sax again.  Even more comical is Rarebell’s strong German accent…“Cat is puwwing, skwatches my skin”…I keep thinking the next track is gonna be “The Monster Mash”.

I was wrong, but close…a remake of the Surfari’s classic “Wipe Out”.  Once again…are you fucking kidding me?  Really?  A trenchcoated aging German rocker playing surfer rock?  If it weren’t for the lack of saxophone, I’d say this was brought on by a sexual withholding as well.

After a display like this, perhaps Herman Ze German’s next album should be called “I Take It Back”.  This was the biggest letdown of the year for me.  I came in excited to hear something new from Herman Rarebell, and I was left jabbing sharp objects into my ears, wishing I was listening to Herman Munster.  Definitely one of the worst albums of 2010.

For more info on Herman Ze German, and to buy this album as a gag gift for one of your buddies, visit http://www.hermanrarebell.com/ and http://www.darkstarrecords.com/onlinestore2.htm