Ever since the departure of David Lee Roth as lead throat for Van Halen, longtime fans have clamored for his return to the band. They claim they suffered through Sammy Hagar\u2019s stint with the band (never mind the fact that no Roth-era Van Halen album ever topped the Billboard<\/i> album chart; all four studio efforts with Hagar did), and we all suffered through the shoulda-been-an-Eddie-solo-album that marked Gary Cherone\u2019s stint with the band.<\/p>\n
But in 2007, dreams came true as Roth again was announced as the lead singer for Van Halen. Five years later, the first Roth-era Van Halen album in nearly 30 years, A Different Kind Of Truth<\/i>, saw the light of day. <\/p>\n
Did you ever hear the old saying, \u201cbe careful what you wish for\u201d? This album is the epitome of that phrase; it\u2019s a decent half-album, but in the end disappoints. <\/p>\n
Let\u2019s get to the elephant in the room first\u2026 namely, the absence of Michael Anthony. Wolfgang Van Halen is a competent bass guitarist, but he doesn\u2019t have the vocal prowess that Anthony did in terms of backup singing. Whatever reason Eddie Van Halen had for not reuniting the \u201cclassic four\u201d lineup, I don\u2019t know\u2026 anyhow, he\u2019s not returning my calls. While the casual fan would probably never hear the difference, Anthony\u2019s absence is noted, and he is missed. <\/p>\n
\u201cTattoo\u201d was a lame choice for lead-off single. Whatever the powers that be were trying to prove with this song, I don\u2019t know, but it failed. The track doesn\u2019t have the hooks like \u201cJump\u201d did; anything trying to resemble such a hook sounds and feels forced. <\/p>\n
Two tracks jump out as being far superior to \u201cTattoo,\u201d and would have been great choices. The first is \u201cBlood And Fire,\u201d which is quite possibly the best song on the disc, and does show there was still magic in this band. Perhaps it wasn\u2019t as strong of a rocker as some might have seen \u201cTattoo\u201d as, which is why it didn\u2019t make that cut. If that were the case, \u201cBullethead\u201d would have been a more than suitable replacement, featuring some of the throwaway lines that make Roth noteworthy as a lyricist. (Sample line: \u201cSome days you\u2019re the dog, some days you\u2019re the hydrant.\u201d That\u2019s frickin\u2019 gold right there.) Its weakness, though, is that it clocks in at two-and-a-half minutes, which is not long enough these days for a single. <\/p>\n
I understand that many of the songs on A Different Kind Of Truth<\/i> are tracks re-worked from Van Halen\u2019s early days; if that\u2019s what they needed to get their creative engine revving again, then so be it. (They may want to make sure the cycle still has gas; as of this writing, it\u2019s now been seven years since this album came out, with no hint of a follow-up coming any time soon.) \u201cShe\u2019s The Woman\u201d is a passable track, at best, but doesn\u2019t live up to the kind of material that Van Halen was putting out toward the end of Roth\u2019s first stint with the band, such as \u201cHouse Of Pain\u201d or even \u201cTop Jimmy\u201d. <\/p>\n
\u201cAs Is\u201d is a track that, quite honestly, has to grow on you, but when it does, it turns out to be quite enjoyable. Likewise, \u201cChina Town\u201d has some solid moments that make you really start to think that Van Halen could be headed back to their halcyon days. <\/p>\n
Unfortunately, the rest of the disc brings those hopes crashing down. It\u2019s not that tracks such as \u201cStay Frosty,\u201d \u201cThe Trouble With Never\u201d or \u201cHoneybabysweetiedoll\u201d are atrocious; it\u2019s that they come off as half-baked tracks that needed a few more coats of paint to become solid efforts. At times, this disc almost makes Diver Down<\/i> sound like a carefully planned-out album. <\/p>\n
The other thing that bothers me is that it sometimes seems like Eddie Van Halen is purposely holding back on his guitar mastery in order to push the song forward. It sure sounds like he hasn\u2019t lost any dexterity after over three decades of being a guitar god; I just wish there were more moments on this disc that really celebrated his skill, instead of this merely being a welcome back party for \u201cDiamond Dave\u201d. <\/p>\n
I\u2019ll admit, while I hated this disc when I first listened to it back when it came out, certain portions have come to grow on me. If only I could say that about the entire album. A Different Kind Of Truth<\/i> has its moments, but is not the ultimate return to glory that either Van Halen or their fans would have hoped for to mark Roth\u2019s re-entry into the band. \t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":30904,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"artist":[5673],"rating":[5614],"class_list":["post-45665","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-van-halen","rating-rating-c-plus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/45665","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=45665"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/45665\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/30904"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=45665"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=45665"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=45665"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}