We hurtle back to the hairspray heaven past of revisit the sounds of George Lynch's 2nd band, Lynch Mob (formerly of Dokken) who are still going to this day! A 2-CD that couples up their first duo of releases, being the debuting 'Wicked Sensation' from 1990 and the Self-Titled 'Lynch Mob' from 1992.

 

The 'Wicked Sensation' album has the bombastic Plant-piping vocals of Oni Logan (now of Dio Disciples & Solo) – a man who sets the bar when it comings to the singing department with the rest of the band made up of course by George Lynch (Guitars), Anthony Esposito (Bass) and 'Wild' Mick Brown of Ted Nugent fame and of course Dokken (Drums).

 

Highlights of which there are many include the epic opening title track, 'Wicked Sensation'; the pounding live fave 'Sweet Sister Mercy' with the killer harmonica intro'; the honesty of the flowing bass-heavy cock rockin', 'No Bed Of Roses'; the power-ballad 'Through These Eyes' or the ballsy closer 'Street Fightin' Man' which not a cover of the Stones song before you ask.

 

What I really like about this album apart from the killer songs on offer is the big cavernous drum sound and well-spaced out guitar-work as well as the exceptional harmonies and backing vocals overall. The album were recorded by the legendary Producer, Max Norman (Ozzy Osbourne /Y& T)

 

The Self-Titled release, produced by the late Keith Olsen, has a change of Lead Vocalists to Robert Mason (now of Warrant) because of live problems sadly with Oni's voice who couldn't match his studio efforts at the time. Robert managed it no problem since he nailed a string of 11 dates in 12 days on a West Coast Tour.

 

The pressure was kinda on since it needs to match the previous album efforts and does easily with the opening 'Jungle Of Love' with its effective introduction and cracking answer-back strong backing vocals that's immediately followed up by 'Tangled In The Web' with its brass-section and to-die-for vocal prowess in the chorus section. In fact, Glenn Hughes did some of the backing vocals on the album who coached the new-to the-duty Mason to perform the overall vocal job.

 

Their cover of Queen's 'Tie Your Mother Down' is a belter although I ain't fully convinced that George's guitar solo works with the song though as it goes off on its own tangent before those magnificent vocals save it again,. The gutsy 'n' raunchy 'I Want It' is the perfect song of its (Titty-Bar) heyday or the incredibly warm and attractive 'Love In Your Eyes' that was originally only released in Japan back in the day!

 

A good follow-up album that's more Dokken in style as opposed to the harder, blues-edged 'Wicked Sensation'. It sold less but Grunge was taking over at the time and received no promotion, with the band dropped and later the band splitting.

 

Overall, a cracking re-packaging with exceptional liner notes by the late UK Journalist, Malcolm Dome.