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The Best Stuff: Van Halen’s “A Different Kind of Truth”
Friday, July 31, 2015
By: Jed Gottlieb

Anybody still spinning the Motley Crue reunion disc “Saints of Los Angeles”? How about KISS’ “Psycho Circus”? I thought so.

But 2012 Van Halen reunion record “A Different Kind of Truth” is genuinely the band’s seventh-best album (after the first six they made with Roth in the 1970s and 1980s, of course).

On the track “Blood and Fire,” Roth cheekily says, “I told you I was coming back. Say you missed me. Say it like you mean it.”

After a solo career that went from A-list to D, the sparkling Diamond Dave we fell for in 1978 returned. He lost the high notes, but who cares? It’s his swagger and moxie we missed.

Many of the tunes on the band’s first album with David Lee Roth since “1984″ are based on outtakes and sketches from Van Halen’s heyday — “She’s the Woman” dates back to a ’76 demo. Some say this is lazy; I say why write new stuff when the old stuff is so great?

Yes, there are some weaker tracks, but this is a new Van Halen album! Something no one — not Dave, Eddie or Sammy Hagar — thought would ever happen. Dub this disc to an eight-track, put it on in your ’82 Chevy G20 van and it will sound like heaven.

It’s packed with Roth’s ridiculous rock-star chatter and mid-song narrations. The break in “As Is” (“It’s not who you squeeze but who returns to once again squeeze you, no doubt/Love ‘em all I says and let Cupid sort ‘em out”) could be straight out of “Women & Children First.”

Eddie’s fleet fingers rip out plenty of face-melting solos. There are also winking homages to guys who ripped off the guitarist 30 years ago — high-speed tapping that recalls Randy Rhodes, slippery Steve Vai squeals and amped-up Yngwie Malmsteen arpeggios.

Purists will hate on Wolfie (whose harmonies aren’t quite up to original bassist Michael Anthony’s). Other than that, the haters have nothing. Park the van, crack into a six-pack and rock like you did when Roth wore nothing but leather chaps.