Search - Michael Schenker :: Save Yourself

The BEST of the MSG albums

The_Grand_Onion | 10/19/2005

(4 out of 5 stars)

""Perfect Timing", the precursor to "Save Yourself", introduced everybody to the awesome vocals of Robin McAuley. Schenker himself must've known there was something special going on here in his band if he retitled the band "McAULEY-Schenker Group" rather than go with the usual "Michael Schenker Group" moniker. While "P.T." was a good album, "Save Yourself" proved to be Schenker's best commerical effort of his solo career. Don't get disillusioned by the word "commercial", though. It just illustrates that the songs were his best songwriting attempt, before or since, to capture the ear of the average rock fan in addition to the diehards who knew him since his UFO days or guitar fanatics. Lord knows everyone I lent my tape to back then, who'd never heard him, usually ended up asking me "Who IS this guy and where can I get some more of his stuff?"

The band came flying out of the gate from the get go with the neo-classical-ish "Save Yourself" and never let up. Unlike neo-classical "god" Yngwie Malmsteen, however, the songs were't limp excuses to allow Schenker to solo endlessly. They were ACTUALLY songs!!

The sound and songs, though, now seem very much from that late 80s metal period, but tracks such as "Anytime" and the sweet instrumental "There Has to Be Another Way", among others, are still enjoyable to listen to. The album description lists "Take Me Back" as a bonus track but as I recall from my cassette of the album, which I still have, "Take Me Back" was part of that medium's songlist too. "Vicious", on the other hand, is new to all the mediums (LP, Cassette, & CD). Such was the push to get MSG on the pubic consciousness that the band actually did a video for "Anytime", thus probably explaining the [Single Edit] version included on the CD.

Alas, while the band did exceedingly well with this album and was largely the same lineup from the "Perfect Timing" session, the follow-up CD entitled "MSG" would see the band whittled down on the album art to just McAuley & Schenker, with no signs of the rest of the band; unlike as was the case in "Perfect Timing" and "Save Yourself".

If you're looking for a good introduction to Michael Schenker without first trying UFO's "Strangers in the Night" live album (another EXCELLENT must-have) THIS is the place to start!"