Given the utter mediocrity of all participants’ output over the previous quarter-century, there was no reason to expect that A Different Kind Of Truth – the first Van Halen album with David Lee Roth singing since 1984 (albeit with young Wolfgang Van Halen now playing bass) – would be remotely enjoyable. That it holds its own in the context of the band’s late-’70s/early-’80s heritage, and might even be a better long-player than, oh, Diver Down in terms of muscle, idiosyncratic song construction, and pure-assed entertainment value, is downright shocking.

That said, it takes a few tracks to get the engine started. Opener and first single, “Tattoo,” just kinda plods – it sounds like the sort of flyover-country clunker you’d expect from Sammy Hagar, to be honest, basically ignorable until the final verse’s atypical pro-union message. Very timely in this labor-busting, right-to-work decade – even if, as rumored, much of the song dates back to VH’s early days. That’s also said to be the case with at least two other tracks on ADKOT; by the time you read this, collectors might well unearth several more similarities to ancient demos. But that’s no reason to dismiss an unearthed gem like the… read more »