Gary Moore - Walkways (1994)

As longtime fans of Gary Moore can attest, the guitarist's career — during the '80s in particular — is comprised of many peaks and valleys, which is quite apparent when listening to the 14-track collection Walkways. This is certainly not a career-encompassing retrospective of this underrated guitarist, as it only focuses on Moore's early-'80s solo material. Keeping pace with such shredders as Eddie Van Halen and Michael Schenker, Moore certainly let his fingers fly during this period, and his metal-based six-string skills are on prominent display throughout, especially on the unaccompanied solo "Dirty Fingers." But unlike most rock guitarists from this era who let an appointed lead singer deal with crowd control, Moore proved to be quite a fine rock singer himself, as evidenced by his bluesy vocals on a cover of "Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood." And while the production and spine-tingling leads make most of the material sound a bit dated here, it's the half-baked lyrics that really bog it all down — how many metal bands of the '80s felt it necessary to show their "serious side" by penning songs about either an impending nuclear holocaust or a remembrance of Hiroshima? Well, I guess Moore couldn't make up his mind as to which subject he wanted to tackle most, as evidenced by "Nuclear Attack" and "Hiroshima." Not one of Moore's better eras.