Dirty Shirley- Dirty Shirley (Frontiers Records)

   If ever the saying "don't judge a book by its cover" applied to anything then this is it. The album cover is godawful and whoever at the label thought it a good idea needs their eyes examined. Also a sticker on the front identifying who plays on it would help, for the store browser you get a crap cover and a band name revealing nothing. Eddie sold Maiden records. Try harder. I saw many negative comments on the Frontiers Facebook page about the artwork, the response from the label was many smiley faced emojis. Swell.

   A pity because there's nothing really negative I can say about the actual music. This is the latest in a long list of recent projects featuring George Lynch, at this stage the guy is on 3 or 4 albums a year and even with that level of output all are far from shit. The star of the album for me though is singer Dino Jelusick (the Frontiers website spells his name without a k at the end, the cd has the k) who would be singing in Lynch Mob if his name wasn't Oni Logan and he lived in the US. The guy has a fantastic set of pipes. Musically the album is very similar to what George has done in Lynch Mob and last years The End: Machine, that's where I have a small issue with it. KXM and Ultraphonix had George playing a little outside his comfort zone trying different styles of music, some of this feels a little safe and repetitive. It's hard rock with a bluesy twist, even the closing acoustic based ballad Grand Master sounds exactly like The Forgotten Maiden's Pearl from The Brotherhood a few years ago.

   All in all though a really strong album, I love the third song I Disappear. Those dark brooding rockers from George are always my favorite similar to When Darkness Calls from the second Lynch Mob album or For A Million Years from Wicked Sensation. Opener Here Comes The King is also really strong. Hopefully Frontiers will pony up the cash for them to do another one and do away with the crap cover art. Adrian Vandenberg should have picked Dino to sing in his revamped Vandenberg line up instead of Ronnie Romero in my opinion. Yes he's that good.

Richie.

http://www.frontiers.it/album/5576

https://www.amazon.com/Dirty-Shirley/dp/B07Y98NLKC/ref=sr_1_1?crid=1390P2MC06712&keywords=dirty+shirley&qid=1580949930&s=music&sprefix=dirty+shirley%2Caps%2C601&sr=1-1