The Mighty Van Halen Reborn!!!

I will start with a bold statement...A Different Kind Of Truth is the greatest Van Halen album ever recorded. Now, I gotta back that up :)

First of all let me start with a review of "The New, Old Van Halen". I have a saying, "Van Halen are my 2 favorite bands." The first 2 incarnations of the band were entirely different. After the sex and booze driven years of the original we enjoyed a decade plus of the commercially friendly Hagar version. Both bands were great in their own way, but one of the things you lost from Dave to Sammy was the edgy creative genius in the music. Genius is a hard thing for the general populace to get, and without Diamond Dave to "translate" for us, Van Hagar were forced to "dumb down" the music to fit Hagar's lyrical deficiencies.
Well guess what folks, the genius is back and Van Halen is now my favorite 3 bands!!! This new VH has been completely transformed by the addition of Wolfgang Van Halen on bass. Wolfgang, Eddie and Alex are now a power-trio without equal on the face of the planet. And Dave is the charismatic poet/philosopher/professional bullshit artist that rides shotgun on the VH express.

Now to the album..

We've heard the Tattoo debate, and now that we've heard the rest of ADKOT we can finally enjoy this tune for what it is, a radio-friendly slow groovy rocker that gives you just enough time to fasten your seatbelt and put your tray in the upright position.
The album really starts picking up steam with She's the Woman. This is exactly what makes VH so special, rock you can shake your booty to. Right from the beginning you get slapped across the chops with a taste of this juicy bottomed Van Halen. Wolfgang and Eddie share licks, trade licks and quickly make you realize that making a change at bass guitar was just what the doctor ordered.

You and Your Blues is in my opinion the most lyrically experimental song on the record. Dave really lays it out on this one, singing about the downside of living in a deadend love-affair Musically the song sounds like a 2 sided coin. There's some radio friendly hooks and there's also an element of raw Van Halen jam sesson that starts with the guitar solo and runs to the end of the song.

Now we get to an interesting part of our journey and the reason why I say this is the bands greatest work.
There is no chunk of any previous Van Halen album that can match what transpires between the next 7 songs:
Chinatown
Blood and Fire
Bullethead
As is
Honeybabiesweetiedoll
The Trouble With Never
Outta Space
This 7 track run gives us a no holds barred, mind blowing look into what this "new Van Halen" is all about. I lack the words to properly describe the experience but lets just say that there are no limits, no rules. This is Van Halen jamming, experimenting and just plain showing-off. The one element that really hits you is how much more of the songs are dedicated to just the 3 Van Halens playing instrumentally. The last 2 minutes of Honeysweetiebabydoll alone are more "Jam Halen" than we've ever been given before.
Musically these songs destroy anything on 1984, Fair Warning and VH 1 (the 3 best classic Van Halen albums). Yes even the pillars on which the Van Halen legacy has been built like "Panama" , "Hot for Teacher", "Aint Talkin Bout Love" and "Running With the Devil" pale in comparison with the ground shaking thunder that blazes from these tunes. This is Van Halen on steroids, the band as it always should have been.

Next we take a slight shift in gears with "Stay Frosty" or as some call it "Ice Cream Man 2012". Another reason why ADKOT trumps VH1...Stay Frosty is better. The music is better, the solos are better and the lyrics are funnier, more clever and delivered with a more unique rythmic pattern.

The album closes with 2 of the reworked demo classics, Big River and Beats Workin. I love everything about both these songs and consider them an encore to what would already have been a breathtaking collection of material.

The difference between Van Halen 1978 and Van Halen 2012..no rules, no restrictions. The original band was a party, this new version is a force of nature. The Van Halens are 100-thousand volts of electricity and Dave is the grinning EMT whose applying the paddles.

Oh, and by the way...the background vocals were just fine ;)

Stay Frosty my friends!!!