This is surely a VH album but its old and we all know that because once you hear the overall product and compare it to the previous few records with Sammy you know that the writing musically is completely different. Eddie is blazing on this record like he's not done in a long time which obviously nods to an era long past. When you hear the guitar on "As Is" there is no bloody way that Eddie came up with this in the last year. He's not ripped it up in this flashy fashion since Woman & Children First.The album isn't as bad as I expected after hearing the horrible "Tattoo" which is so bad it made me dislike Dave a little. Where this album eclipses the entire III debacle is that Eddie is blowing up the fretboard constantly. Even with the lesser vocalist and missing Michael Anthony not to mention the somewhat bad drumming of Alex and his stunted fills the album is worth hearing for Eddie alone.
The grind of "Honeybabysweetiedoll" is a wanking moment for Eddie and whatever else is going on doesn't really matter at all and you'll see what I mean once you listen to it. It seems like when the band tries the more refined hook sound Roth just doesn't have that smooth vocal needed to make the song truly shine. He's so circus meets vaudeville now that all I can see is that dumb ass grin and his giant stage props. The guy is such a dork now he's not cool anymore "Dave's Lost His Cool".
There are some really gawd awful songs on this album like "The Trouble With Never" that goes nowhere and makes me feel sad that is the best they could do and think its good. But then a song like "Outta Space" appears and you shake your head fog away and are transported back to VHII and feel 12 again. It's such an awkward listen because of how uneven it is as well as knowing that none of this is newly written music and sounds as so.
Don't get me wrong if you enjoy Eddie Van Halen then there is a lot of stuff to like on the album but in the end I feel like Dave's weaker than before. Although his best moment might be "Stay Frosty" which still has some bad phrasing and stumbling vocals. If the band had a better producer who took control of Roth and kicked his ass when he was laying down the vocal not accepting some of the performances and such this album could be a much better record than anyone expected. So boogie on folks this is what we got after mooning over the return of Roth for decades and well honestly what did you expect in reality? There was no chance DLR was going to be running with the devil at his age.
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