Stings the eardrums a lot more

Time has been cruel to Germany’s once-premier hard-rock outfit Scorpions. 1982’s “Blackout” was a landmark in German heavy music — the soaring vocals of Klaus Meine, the Iron Maiden-esque guitar harmonies of Matthias Jabs and Rudolf Schenker and the fists-in-the-air arena anthem “No One Like You” gave them international superstar status, and rightly so.

Unfortunately, on “Sting in the Tail” — the quintet’s final album — nothing goes right. This is tepid, stale old-man rock at its finest, a middling attempt to recapture past glories that can’t even capture the listener’s attention. The first two tracks employ an obnoxious Framptonian talk box, and the album has at least four ballads (it’s easy to lose count when none of them are memorable).

It’s sad to see such a classic band go out so ugly, but if this is all they’re capable of at this point, it’s probably for the better that they quit.