A Different Kind Of Truth, A Not-So-Different Van Halen

2012 is known to be a year full of monumental events and interesting activity. While everyone is debating the meaning of the Mayan calendar’s ending, politicians are running around for election time, athletes are training for the Olympics this summer, and Van Halen just released a new album. I know what you’re thinking: “What?? Van Halen?? New album?? I thought they went broke and work at Starbucks?” Yes, the Van Halen brothers have reunited with front man David Lee Roth and broke their 15-year studio hiatus to release their twelfth studio album, A Different Kind of Truth. Not even the Mayans could have predicted this strange turn of events. The album is full of everything you would expect from Van Halen with Diamond Dave at the helm: amazing guitars, cheesy lyrics, and a classic rock sound.

For those of you who don’t know Van Halen’s messy history with David Lee Roth, former singer Sammy Hagar (who replaced Roth), and former bassist Michael Anthony, I suggest you Wikipedia the band’s history, for it is a long and twisted tale which makes this album’s release such a big deal. The current lineup in the band is Eddie Van Halen (the guitar master), Alex Van Halen (drums), Roth (vocals), and Wolfgang Van Halen (bassist, who is also Eddie’s son. Can you say silver spoon?). The album sounds very much like the band’s first two albums, Van Halen and Van Halen II, with some pre-synth stuff mixed in. I was actually very impressed that the band was able to capture that classic sound, from the guitars to Roth’s attitude and everything in between. Some of the tracks are quite reminiscent of older Van Halen tracks such as “Feel your Love Tonight”, “Ice Cream Man”, “Little Guitars”, and “Romeo’s Delight”. Eddie is in full force in this record, sounding as good as ever with his blazing solos and great riffs. Alex is as steady as he always is on the drums while Wolfgang provides an impressive groove on the bass. And of course, what is a Roth-fronted Van Halen record without some good ol’ fashioned Roth-isms? Ba-ba-da, shoo-bee-doo-waa!!!

As good as the music in the album is, the vocals unfortunately do not live up to the bar set by the Van Halen family. Roth is definitely past his prime on this album and his range is not what it used to be. In fact, his range has become precisely 3 notes: low, regular/midrange, and when he attempts to go high but ends up giving people in Asia seizures instead. You may think this is an exaggeration but his melodies don’t have much movement in this record. There is an absence of the strong hooks that has earned Van Halen the right to be in the rock & roll hall of fame. When Dave sings in his normal/midrange voice he sounds pretty strong but when he attempts going high like the days of yesteryear he hurts the song. Now, Roth has never been known to be a great lyricist, but at least the lyrics were easy to forgive on earlier Van Halen records because everything else made up for it. Even songs like “Hot for Teacher” with its comical lyrics had a hook everyone remembers with “got it bad, got it bad, got it bad… I’m hot for teacher”. Sadly, that type of “sticky hook” is missing in this album. Even on the record’s best songs (in my opnion) “She’s the Woman”, “Blood and Fire”, “Bullethead”, and “As Is” the hooks are mediocre at best. The way Roth phrases most of the lyrics in the album sounds like he is reading random thoughts and notes off of a page without any thought of fitting vowels, consonants, and phrase structures to melodies. Also, he uses his low voice for spoken word style parts too often in the album. It would be ok once in a while, like in “Me Wise Magic” (from their greatest hits album Volume I. Ironically, there was never a Volume II), but Roth uses this technique all too often to talk about things which aren’t thought provoking at all.

Most bands who have been around as long as Van Halen go through a cycle of establishing their sound, becoming insanely popular, trying different ideas for new albums, then going back full circle to albums that try to mimic the band’s original sound (see Metallica, U2, Iron Maiden, Judas Priest, Rush, the list goes on…). Some bands are successful at this, others less so. Van Halen has captured their old sound, so unless you’re a soulless creature, you can’t help but head bang to some of these tracks. However, as cool as the riffing and vibe can be, it definitely is nothing new. It is not the case of a classic band with their classic sound writing some new solid tunes. It sounds like an attempt to capture some magic from the past to bring it to the present. If they spent a little more time honing the vocals on this album I think they could have achieved it. But the last time I checked it was 2012 and not 1984. We need new songs to remember this year’s election, the Olympics, and other unplanned events that new music will undoubtedly become associated with. At the very least we’ll need some new songs in the background while we debate the Mayan calendar over a frosty mug of beer.

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