'Sacred Groove' is the first solo album from guitar whiz 'George Lynch' following his time with 'Dokken' and then his own band the vastly underrated 'Lynch Mob'. A respectable effort it is too, not too self indulgent like many guitarist's solo albums and graced with some excellent guest vocalists. Stylistically this isn't a million miles away from his former bands, pretty melodic, but not without the all important crunch, personally I don't think all the tracks come off, but there's no shortage of variation and most melodic Hard Rock fans should take something from this release.

The instrumental 'Memory Jack' opens proceedings, a short futuristic sounding piece that acts as a nice prelude to the first track proper. The Oddly titled guitar fuelled instrumental 'Love Power from the Mama Head' follows and here we see 'George' in classic mode, pure controlled shred, musically carefree and uplifting, while sporting stunning fret mastery- Just dazzling. Arguably even better is the superb 'Flesh and Blood' which sounds like a cross between 'Badlands' and 'Dokken', this is off little surprise considering the vocals are courtesy of the late, great 'Ray Gillen', musically this driven rocker is lively and graced with excellent lyrics, especially the catchy chorus- another cracker. Less impressive is the stereotypical 80's sounding Pop Metal of 'We Don't Own this World' a generic track that in my opinion is let down by the "Peace and Love" lyrics, despite this there's some nice contributions. Improvements are quickly made with the splendid instrumental 'I Will Remember' a beautiful song, full of lush guitaring and glorious melody. Next up is the two parter 'The Beast' which features 'Mandy Lion' on vocals, this more aggressive, modern sounding cut is pretty interesting and features some fine riffs and rhythm work, ultimately though the second part 'Addicted to the Friction' is totally pointless, as it's just more of the same. 'Glen Hughes' contributes vocals on the next two tracks, the first of which is 'Not Necessary Evil' a good solid plodding rocker and while I'm not sure about the backing vocals, 'Glen's' vocals blend well with 'Lynch's' dynamic fret work for a worthy track. Not quite so strong is the decent if unremarkable 'Cry of the Brave', a tame mid tempo affair that while nicely executed is nothing really noteworthy. 'Sacred Groove' bows out with the Latin sounding instrumental 'Tierra Del Fuego' personally I'm not keen on the Spanish feel, but there's plenty of other nice parts so all in all a respectable effort.

Nice work from 'George Lynch', but that said nothing revolutionary and not up to his work with either 'Dokken' or 'Lynch Mob', still work checking out though for guitar fans and those who like the aforementioned bands.