 Lynch/Pilson Wicked underground What's up everybody!? U.S. correspondent Drew Olmsted here, puttin' the cyber pen to work. I was thinking about this movie I saw years ago, probably around 1985, called "Snow Bunnies". This movie was about a group of Americans who take a ski trip to Switzerland, stay in a resort, and experience all sorts of sexual hijinks. If I am not mistaken, this lame B-movie was probably my first porno. Soft core, but porno non-the less. I was about 13-14 years old at the time and was visiting my Dad, step mom, and her family in California. My step mom's youngest daughter had gone to Germany to be a foreign exchange student and had befriended a beautiful German girl, who was about 16 years old. This beautiful lass was now currently staying with my Dad's family as a foreign exchange student! Oh, how it seems like yesterday, I can still vividly recall her suntanned body laying on the lawn chair, in a bikini, in the back yard, as I watched unseen from the upstairs window. What an exciting time for a young inexperienced man like myself. After seeing Snow Bunnies, I had all kinds of fantasies about this young German girl that I was sure would come true. Overcoming language barriers, social mores, and hairy armpits, to achieve total underage fornicational bliss. After all, wasn't she here for a little taste of America? Did these fantasies come true? Of course not. But all that reminiscing about foreign, beautiful ski slopes, and forbidden international love, made me think of, in a round about way, my new friends in Sweden! I should do a CD review for the one and only Metal Shrine! The CD in question is the brand spankin' new disc from former Dokken alumnus, George Lynch and Jeff Pilson. Aptly titled "Lynch Pilson, Wicked Underground". I was never a huge Dokken fan, but George has always been my favorite guitarist. I have followed his musical career way past Dokken, through his solo work on "Sacred Groove" and into his current band Lynch Mob. I never followed Jeff Pilson's career after Dokken, but I do believe I might have scored a burger and fries from him at the local McDonald's. Super size it buddy! Anyways, after much wrangling with the packaging, I was ready to go. (If anybody from a record company is listening, there has got to be a better way to wrap CD's. You should not need a Mechanical Engineering degree and a blowtorch to get into these things. C'mon man!) The CD cover is pretty basic. One sheet folded in half, lame artwork, the usual thanks and credits, but no lyrics! As it turns out, they weren't needed. There are 12 tracks on the disk, and I'm sad to say, they are all pretty forgettable. As I've said, I am a huge George Lynch fan, and I was really expecting a lot from this. I would list the tracks but it would be too painful to recount, and this review is long enough as it is. The songs that do stand out are "Zero The End", "The Evil That You Are", and "Goodbye Utopia". You could call these the best of the worst. The song structures mix down tuned guitar, nu-metal sounding intros, with eighties style verses and choruses. An interesting combination, but not one that works. Most regrettably is the conspicuous absence of George Lynch's phenomenal guitar work. Where is it? No nasty "Kiss Of Death" style riffs, no killer, scorching solos. Lameness abounds. Surprisingly, Jeff Pilson looks and sounds a lot like Don Dokken. Whether that is good or bad depends on your perspective, but he does do a respectable job on the vocals. All through the listening process I kept thinking, this sounds familiar. Then it dawned on me, "Dysfunctional". Anybody remember that one? I didn't think so. It was Dokken's ill-fated attempt at a reunion. A sorry ass slab, of steaming alternative crap. This CD sounds a lot like "Dysfunctional". So basically, if you liked Dysfunctional, you will like Lynch Pilson. If you, like me, are still walking funny from the screwing you received when you bought Dysfunctional, you'll want to stay away from this one. Like the German girl at the beginning of this story, I had high expectations for the Lynch Pilson disk. And just like the German girl at the beginning of this story, I was left completely disappointed and void of any satisfaction. I believe this is a one-time collaboration between these two and probably won't happen again. I am not sure, but there may be another Lynch Mob album in the works. So, if you are a Lynch fan, be on the look out for that, and let this one slip into bargain bin history. Later, Drew
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