Van Halen - Balance
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Free Music Notes for Balance
Free Music Review: "Balance" delivers!
Hit: 5 Stars
This is by far my favorite Van Halen album to date. I can't say that I particulaly dislike any of the songs on this CD, and Balance has produced just as many favorites for me as all of VH's earlier ones combined, as well as my favorite VH performance, "Baluchitherium". Eddie Van Halen is in high gear all throughout this album, and even a casual Van Halen fan should be satisfied with his (as always) killer guitar solos; Sammy Hagar is as good as ever, although I'm sure that a lot of people won't care for the nonsense in "Big Fat Money",---regardless, I still love the song. "Can't Stop Lovin' You", "Amsterdam", "Big Fat Money", "Baluchitherium", and "Take Me Back (Deja Vu)" are all great songs and immediately found a place on my mp3 player; this album isn't perfect, but it sounds fresh and clear, and the three instrumentals add to the general effect.
Now if only Eddie & Alex Van Halen would ever release a solos album...I loved "Doin' Time" and "Baluchitherium", and another "Respect the Wind" would be welcomed too.
Free Music Review: The best and last with Sammy Hagar!
Hit: 5 Stars
In January of 1995, Van Halen released their 10th studio record, and 11th album overall counting Right Here, Right Now a live compilation set from their For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge tour. In 1995, most bands that were around during Van Halen's heyday had been all but wiped out by the grunge explosion of the early 90's, only Aerosmith and a very few others managed to hang around after Nirvana took over the music world. Some critical Van Halen find Balance to be dark or to much of a change in formula for their taste, but to be 100 percent honest this is probably their strongest and tightest record to date. Bruce Fairbairn, does a masterful job at putting everyone in the bands skills up front on this record, Sammy writes quite frankly the best lyrics of his career with Van Halen on this record, while Eddie of course slaughters anything that could be laid before his feet and mows through these tracks like an angry grizzly! Mike and Alex's rhythm section sounds as tight as a waterproof hatch, they don't ever get enough credit for Van Halen's sound, Mike's background vocals and Alex's one of a kind drumming keep awesome pace with Eddie and Sammy on this album. Fairbairn, also has these guys sounding like their recording their first ever record with energy and enthusiasm not seen in quite a while maybe since 1984, it sounds great and he picks up everything these guys do great!
1. The Seventh Seal 10-10 A very good way to start off this record, complete with buddhist chants and awesome guitar riff from Eddie. Sammy writes some pretty deep lyrics here about everyday life, they really say something for a guy most think is a 60 year old 15 year old.
2. Can't Stop Lovin' You 10-10 Very good power ballad, in fact the very best ballad Van Halen ever recorded in my humble opinion. my wife even likes this song and she's not a Van Halen fan. Awesome lyrics about hope and love with a very catchy chorus.
3. Don't Tell Me 10-10 One of the hardest rocking songs ever recorded by Van Halen, and another one of my favorites, Great riff by Eddie, and Sammy lryics I have heard are about Kurt Cobain's suicide. Awesome hard rock song, and pretty catchy as well.
4. Amsterdam 10-10 The most party rock sounding song on this record, I bet you can't guess what this song is about? You guessed it Amsterdam, Holland and everything else that goes on over there. In 95 when they released the video for this track MTV banned it due to the graphic drug references. It's a great rock song though.
5. Bg Fat Money 10-10 Van Halen meets the Ramones, this song borders on the verge of punk rock, very fast and rivals Good Enough for the most thrash sounding Van Halen song ever.
6. Strung Out 10-10 The first of 3, yes count them 3 instumentals on this record. I am not sure why Van Halen put 3 instumentals on this record, but I wish they would have changed some to actual songs.
7. Not Enough 10-10 Second ballad from Balance, and it's another really catchy tune more of a power ballad than sappy ballad, Hagars voice and lyrics carry this song tremendously.
8. Aftershock 10-10 Very awesome Rock & Roll song, took this song a while to grow on me, but man I love it now one of the best on the record, and Eddie's solo is one of his best ever.
9. Doin' Time 10-10 Another instrumental, and another slot where they could have put more songs. I am not a fan of instrumentals, and this album carrys way to many of them.
10. Baluchiterium 10-10 Alas the third and thank god the final instrumental on the record. This is a fairly long instrumental at over 4 minutes, but put some lyrics down guys this could have rocked.
11. Take Me Back 10-10 The absolute Cr?me de la Cr?me of all Van Halen songs. This is another sort of over the top power ballad, and the guitar crunching Eddie does on the chorus is awesome and original. Hagar writes some very touching lyrics that people so often overlook due to his party guy image.
12. Feelin' 10-10 Closing the album out is Feelin' a slow clunking rocker that has some really deep soul-searching lyrics courtesy of Sammy, and one of the fastest solo's I have ever heard from Eddie, overall a great way to end the album.
Balance was re-released in 1996, with a bonus track called Crossing Over, not a bad song they could have kept it on the original copy and enhanced an already masterful album. Released during the grunge carze of the middle 90's most people didn't give this record a chance they said it mimicked the grunge souns to much, well that's because grunge is what was hot at the time and Van Halen did it better than most grunge bands. This is absolutely one of the best albums of the 1990's and my favorite Van Halen album to date, I wish they would re-unite with Sammy and Mike make another killer rock record and keep making records till they die!
Free Music Review: A few clunkers aside, a nice dark effort: 4 stars
Hit: 4 Stars
Overall BALANCE is an amalgam of some of the best and least interesting (ok...BAD) work from the Sam Halen years, so it's both a sense of "man...look what we're getting as the door is slamming on this relationship" mixed precariously with a fistful of almost painful filler.
Let's start with the bad and bring this to a more positive resolve. Van Halen has long been known for their varieties of instrumentals throughout the years....from the iconic Eruption to the nylon pluck of Spanish Fly. From the volume swells of Cathedral to the almost-horror-score-like quality of Sunday Afternoon In The Park. No shortage of oddities, most of them quite good on their own or acting as great segues into the songs that follow. (Intruder and 1984 spring to mind immediately).
Balance contains no fewer than three instrumentals and quite frankly, only one of them is worth a damn. Strung Out is a hopelessly annoying mess of sound that's the sonic equivalent of nails on the chalkboard. It tries to capture an old time horror movie flavor but it's simply a cacophany of noise. Poor Doin' Time fares no better. Alex is best when hammering out sexy drum intros or tearing up a solo live, but studio percussion solos are often awkward and unnecessary, and so is this one. Thankfully each clocks in at a merciful sub-two-minute mark. Only Bastardonlithium comes close to resembling something of musical merit, with its Steve Vai-esque qualities. Nothing offensive here, aside from it being pretty repetetive.
Two vocal-led songs lead the "doesn't cut the mustard" charge and those would be Amsterdam, with its dreadful chorus...and Big Fat Money, which is probably the most awkward and embarrassing intro to a VH song...ever. More than the music, the lyrics do these two in. In fact, the latter is quite a rousing hyper-active little jam and not unlike something that would snuggle up nicely on a record like 1984. Sammy's weakness as a lyricist is on neon display with these two.
Easily these four could've and should've not made the cut. But the good news is that the remaining eight are quite quality. The periphery or fringe here is the Why Can't This Be Love-ish Can't Stop Loving You...a type of rocker ballad that came to typify the Sammy years. Not so offensive as predictable, but likeably so. It's a hummer and somewhat of a forgivably guilty pleasure.
The rest of the album rides along with some of Sammy's best-ever VH efforts which seem to reflect some of the tension in the band. Whether intentional or not, there's a dour sort of darkness to some of these tunes.
The Seventh Seal is easily a top 5 Van Hagar era tune and a great album opener. Don't Tell Me (What Love Can Do) is another solid riff-heavy tune with some soaring vocal emotion from Samward Van Hagar and a zesty solo from EVH. Not Enough takes the ballad route, but with a bit of a heavy edge...and I like this song quite well. The piano chord back ups during the solo give the song an ominous presence. Aftershock is perfectly pleasable as a mid-tempo Sam song, not unlike Runaround from F.U.C.K. The CD is rounded off by the sadly forgotten acoustically-driven Take Me Back (Deja Vu), which harkens back to some of the better moments off OU812, like Feels So Good....and the moody closer, Feelin,' which along with the opener, provide perfectly wonderful bookends. Another tune I'd effortlessly rank in my top few Sam/VH tunes.
This album was made in the hands of Mike Plotnikoff, Mike Frasier, and Bruce Fairbairn....in other words, Aerosmith mobile. But the result is a lush, fat sound that I happen to love. Best sounding Van Halen record since 1984 or perhaps earlier...along with the Templeman-produced Carnal Knowledge.
Trim this thing down to a more svelt 8 tunes...losing Amsterdam, Big Fat Money, and the two noisy, pointless, and carelessly placed instrumentals....and this thing easily contends for the best Sammy Hagar-era VH record. Even with these duds, it still does because the good-to-great moments are merely distracted from, not distorted by the weaker efforts.
I'm not sure this was quite the "balance" they were looking for.
Anyway, even as is, it's 4-stars of 5 because the good moments are definite keepers...and the tone of the album is solid. B (-)
Free Music Review: A Great Album
Hit: 5 Stars
This is another great album by one of the greatest bands to hit the hard rock scene, Van Halen. Eddie's guitar sounds amazing as do Alex's drums.
1: The Seventh Seal: Awesome riff by eddie and a fun song to listen to.
2: Cant Stop Lovin You: A nice bass line in the background and a great love song.
3: Don't Tell Me (What Love Can Do): Argueably one of the greatest riffs I have heard, you can hear the mean, growl of Eddie's Guitar along with a classic EVH solo. A heavy song that is one of the best on the album.
4: Amstersdam: A fun song with a great tone of Eddie's Guitar and an awesome solo. Another great song.
5; Big Fat Money: Another fun song with really good solo work and just makes you wanna jump up and dance the ngith away ;)
6: Eddie Van Halen gettign creative with forks on a piano and inside it, should be used in a horror secene of a movie, it's creepy.
7: Not Enough; A sweet and easy-going song with nice piano work.
8 Aftershock: One of the best on the album, A great riff and a really good song with classic EVH soloing.
9: Alex's Van Halen mastery over the drums.
10: Balichutherium: An excellent instrumental song with deadly EVH guitar tone. Probably the best tone I've ever heard from a guitar. At the end, u can hear what EVH can do with a guitar and the different noises that he can make with a guitar.
11: A good song that always amke me think of the old days for me.
12: Feelin' :A slower song but really good with one of the fastest solos I've heard since eruption. Just shows you EVH's mastery over the guitar.
Overall, I'd rate this album 9/10. It's a great album and never gets old to me. If you are a VH fan, it's a must own. Even if you are just a hard-rock fan, you should own this.
Free Music Review: Disappointment/Unbalanced
Hit: 2 Stars
I wanted to like this album. I really did. I'm a big Van Halen fan, and a big Van Hagar fan as well.
It's just too trite. Many of the songs feel like they threw a bunch of good elements in a hat (low chorused guitar riff/harmonics/big beat/primal scream/crazy solo/resolving of tension with soaring melodic guitar) and pulled them out in combinations to create songs. Some of these elements work for a few bars, but ultimately they all disappoint.
Honestly, there isn't a single song on this album that is really complete and interesting. Sorry guys. I tried.