I don’t think I’ve ever heard so much about a specific album
\nprior to hearing it than I did going into
\nSmoke This<\/i>, the latest offering from Lynch Mob. More
\nspecifically, I had to block from my mind the fact that everything
\nI had heard about this album was painfully bad.<\/p>\n
So, into the annex of the Pierce Memorial Archives went I
\n(actually, into the bedroom, as the missus was watching television
\nin the living room) with the disc in hand, and I emerged an hour
\nlater, saying only… “What a piece of shit!” With one exception,
\nSmoke This<\/i> is a disc that is destined for a date with the
\ncutout bins.<\/p>\n
Think about it, this title opens itself to a flood of opening
\nlines I could make about the latest outing from former Dokken
\nguitarist George Lynch. Sure, I thought of using a line like,
\n“George, what
\nwere<\/i> you smoking when you recorded this crap?” Or I could
\nhave made a comment about what I thought of the disc once the smoke
\ncleared. Nah, that’s too easy – besides, it ain’t fun hunting
\nwounded prey. So we’ll discuss this like civilized people…
\nthen<\/i> we’ll throw the carcass to the jackals.<\/p>\n
(Just a side note… anyone notice that one of the symbols on
\nthe cover art of
\nSmoke This<\/i> looks like a mirror image of a symbol used by a
\ngroup whose views are, aah, not so nice? Just an observation.)<\/p>\n
I can sympathize with Lynch, in some regards. He’s been seen as
\nthe guitar god, “Mr. Scary,” for so many years, and he’s tired of
\nthe whole scene. He wants to try his hand at something new. Fine; I
\nhave no problems with that.<\/p>\n
Problem number one: Lynch chooses to use the “Lynch Mob”
\nmoniker. Fine, I know it’s his… but he should have recognized
\nthat he was going to disappoint a lot of fans expecting to hear the
\nnext
\nWicked Sensation<\/i>.<\/p>\n
Problem number two: Lynch disposes with the world of metal and
\ngoes instead with a half-hearted, half-assed mixture of weak hard
\nrock and ganster wanna-be rap. Again, I understand that Lynch
\nneeded a change in his musical routine. But why would he dive
\nheadfirst into a rap-rock collaboration without first checking if
\nthere was any water in the pool?<\/p>\n
The results, as you can imagine, are disastrous. Granted, the
\nrythmic backbone of Gabe Rosales on bass and Clancy McCarthy on
\ndrums have their contributions overlooked as a result of the whole
\nstew; they deserve some recognition for trying to pull off a decent
\nperformance. But from the opening notes of “World Spinning Away,”
\nyou can hear the collective voice of the audience saying,
\n“Uh-oh.”<\/p>\n
Kirk Harper bounces around the CD tossing out rhymes like he’s
\nthe next Zack De La Rocha. Kirk, you’re not even the next Vanilla
\nIce; lighten up. Lynch, for his part, still knows how to work out a
\nsomewhat tasty guitar lick or two in the rhythms, but solos? Forget
\nabout it. The solos on
\nSmoke This<\/i> are so pedestrian they sound like
\nI<\/i> could play them.<\/p>\n
The poor tracks fall from
\nSmoke This<\/i> like mosquitoes near a bug zapper. Cuts like
\n“Hype-O,” “Playalistics,” “When I Rise” and the title track all
\nwill have you looking impatiently at the counter on the CD player,
\nwondering when this disc is going to end. Even the instrumental,
\n“Indra’s Art,” falls prey to this nightmare. On the one cut where
\nLynch could have stepped up and saved the day, he chooses to make a
\nnoise-ridden track that would have had even Dali shake his head
\nwith disgust.<\/p>\n
There is one saving grace on
\nSmoke This<\/i>, though – “Relaxin’ In The Land Of AZ,” a track
\nthat does seem to have both words and music come together in a
\npalatable format. It’s still no masterpiece, but compared to some
\nof the shit on this disc, it looks like the “Mona Lisa”.<\/p>\n
By the way, to whoever prepared the liner notes on this disc…
\nthe word is spelled “absolutely,” not “absolutley”. Haven’t you
\never heard of a fuckin’
\nspell checker<\/i>, for Chrissakes?<\/p>\n
Lynch seemed to say by his departure from Dokken that he no
\nlonger wanted to be seen as a guitar god. On
\nSmoke This<\/i>, he succeeds, but I don’t think this is the way
\nhe wanted to prove himself right. Be sure to leave this disc a wide
\nberth on your next excursion to the record store.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":25243,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[],"artist":[6236],"rating":[11203],"class_list":["post-36448","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-lynch-mob","rating-rating-d-minus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/36448","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=36448"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/36448\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25243"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36448"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36448"},{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=36448"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=36448"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}