Lynch Mob (1992)

Some bands only a record company could like. Both Lynch Mob and Hardline fit the bill, soullessly slinging together proven hacks from dubious hit bands. Neal Schon (who helped perpetrate such depressingly corporate bands as Journey and Bad English) has struck a cynical new low with Hardline. At least his earlier bands were distinctively terrible. Double Eclipse is flagrantly generic, churning out the kind of personality-free ''hard rock'' that could appeal only to mid-level promotion men brainstorming what they think ''the kids'' really want. Apparently this includes a vocalist who sings like an infected squirrel.

Lynch Mob's music is just as crassly market-driven. The group's second album centers on the why-bother guitar riffs of George Lynch (late of the unaccountably successful Dokken). Despite some menacingly evil imagery on its album cover, Lynch Mob is slick, eagerly commercial metal. No wonder it comes off like any other band of long-hair, chest-baring bores with too many amplifiers and too few ideas. Lynch Mob: F