VAN HALEN — A Different Kind Of Truth (review)

VAN HALEN — A Different Kind Of Truth album cover Album · 2012 · Hard Rock Buy this album from MMA partners
3.5/5 ·
Time Signature
Outta space...

Genre: hard rock

Van Halen's long anticipated new album is out, and featuring no less than three members of the Van Halen family on drums, bass, and guitar, plus David Lee Roth on vocals, this is an album that is bound to make any long time Van Halen fan happy.

To me, I must admit that "A Different Kind of Truth" is a bit of an uneven ride. I definitely do not understand why 'Tattoo' was chosen as the opener, as it strikes me as being quite sub par and almost limping compared to many of the other tracks on the album, such as 'China Town', 'She's the Woman', 'Bullethead' and 'Out of Space', all of which are in-yer-face super strong uptempo hard rockers. While I think that there are plenty of really good songs on this album, such as the ones just mentioned, there is still a handful of tracks that do not appeal to me and that, to my ears, come across as being relatively weak - it might be that the tracks that appeal to me are so super great that even a track which is 'just' good will come across as 'mediocre' if you know what I mean.

This being Van Halen, there is, of course, a lot of awesome guitar playing - and both the guitars solos and the guitar riffing is amazing and should go straight to the heart of any fan of guitar-driven rock. I am a bit ambivalent about David Lee Roth's vocals, I must admit, and I know that a lot of people will consider me an ungodly blasphemer for feeling like this, but, while his performance is flawless and his soulful voice suits many of the songs on the album, I cannot help but feeling that it takes a singer with a more powerful and versatile voice to match up with Eddie Van Halen's guitar delivery.

But, in any case "A Different Kind if Truth" is definitely a comeback of magnitude from one of the most legendary acts in the world of hard rock and heavy metal and any fan of hard rock should definitely check it out.
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LittleBig wrote:
more than 2 years ago
I could not get half way through the album; DLR is to blame for that. I never liked the guy that mych but here he annoyed me.
VH fans are happy, who am I to contradict them. (rolling his eyes, logs off)

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