Review Summary: A serious contender for worst album of the era.
George Lynch is a renowned guitarist who sky-rocketed to fame in the 1980’s with hair metal favorites Dokken. As Dokken began to lose steam in the latter part of the decade, he created his own group, Lynch Mob. Their first release,
Wicked Sensation (1990), was a smashing success with fans;
Wicked Sensation featured the same type of catchy riffing and solos as found in Dokken, except it was taken a step further, becoming a little heavier, a little more aggressive, and ditching many of the dreaded clichés synonymous with the era. While
Wicked Sensation was never an enormous success commercially, it remains a cult classic within the genre and is arguably George Lynch’s best overall work. Fast forward from 1990 to 1999, and the story is radically different.
Smoke This features the type of experimentation that usually spells doom for artists. In this case, Lynch and crew drop the riffs and opt for rapping. Yes, you read that correctly- rapping. When the universes of heavy music and rap unite, the byproducts are usually quite predictable: the obligatory misspelling of words (e.g. “When I Rize”), detuned guitars, and painfully bland musical compositions. Worse yet here, the guitar legend finds it wise to perform very few solos on this record. Thus, we have a group based around George Lynch, in which George Lynch renders himself mostly irrelevant. The spotlight is instead on vocalist Kirk Harper; I would tell you more about Kirk Harper but it appears his career was short lived as he doesn’t even have a Wikipedia page, nor is Google much help in this case either.
Calling
Smoke This a failure would be giving it a compliment; a more accurate statement would be calling it an utter abomination that I wouldn’t force upon my most hated enemies. No one should be subjected to this. The rap-metal experiment rarely works, and frankly, this is one of the worst offenders. I don’t think much else needs to be said beyond this. I won’t cause you the head trauma of a lyrical discussion. Just bury this deep in your subconscious and never forget it: avoid
Smoke This at all costs, avoid
Smoke This at all costs, avoid
Smoke This at all costs, avoid
Smoke This at all costs…..
