Stingless Scorpions : Check List ****<i> Great Balls of Fire</i> ***<i> Good Vibrations</i> **<i> Maybe Baby</i> *<i> Running on Empty </i>

**SCORPIONS. “Savage Amusement.” Mercury. “Without you, life’s like a song without music,” Klaus Meine screeches on the Scorpions’ first studio LP in four years. That’s obviously meant to be a frightening thought, and--especially applied to this collection--Meine clearly knows whereof he screams: If you stripped the music away from this nine-song Teutonic blast, you’d be left with stupefyingly simple-minded treatises about such topics as being on the road, in lust or on stage.

The lyrics play like mildly related phrases scribbled on napkins over lunch: The concert anthem “We Let It Rock . . . You Let It Roll” actually repeats the question, “Hey you, are you ready for tonight?” while “Love on the Run” includes the statement, “I kiss the lust / Right from your lips,” which wouldn’t seem like something to brag about.

The music’s no prize-winner, either, but it has the crunchy, catchy, head-banging qualities to send it into the Top 10. The German quintet (aided immeasurably by longtime producer Dieter Dierks) traverses the metallic spectrum with all the commercial savvy and studio aplomb you’d expect of a band that’s been in this noisy racket for 17 years.

So, the Scorpions tackle such hyper-rawk screamers as “We Let It Rock . . . “ and “Love on the Run,” with guitarists Rudolf Schenker and Matthias Jabs engaging in some fiery Riffs-R-Us fret-slinging, then downshifts into “Believe in Love,” a graceful power ballad that’s as tender as Scorpions music gets.

That tune and a handful of mid-tempo romps are radio-ready slabs of rock that, coupled with the commercial horsepower the band has generated in recent years, makes you wonder why the woefully self-conscious lyrics here didn’t include ruminations about being on the airwaves, or high on the charts. Maybe next album?