Van Halen

Balance

Van Hagar's Last Scream

Review Score:

(6/10)
This album is definetely a dissapointment after the coherent sense of purpose created on the Carnal Knowledge album. It took four years for this album to come out which is far longer than usual for this band. It sounds like the bandmembers were probably spending far more time with their families than they were with each other. It's like they threw some songs together on a trip to Amsterdam, and said "Wham Bam", there you go.

"The Seventh Seal", is heavy like "Poundcake", but unfortunetly not nearly as good. You want to like this song, but it just sounds too serious for VH. "Can't Stop Loving You", is a bonafide pop hit with good lyrics. As a ballad it's very upbeat, but not in the same league as "Love Walks In", "Dreams" (5150), or "When It's Love" (OU812).

"Don't Tell Me" is a decent rocker which preaches about the importance of freewill. Nice guitar solo. The song contains what seems an obvious mention of the 1994 shotgun suicide of Kurt Cobain: "Ain't gonna tell you what's right for you/I've seen the damage done/Down with the shotgun". Here Cobain is cast as a christ-like martyr. "I get down on my knees and pray/Now I'm saved by a higher voice/Givin' up my choice". As on, "Mine All Mine" (OU812), and, "Judgement Day" (Carnal Knowledge), Sammy thus reveals both his preoccupation with religion, and his ambivalence towards it.

Ed's chops are nice on "Amsterdam", but the song just sounds like an advertisement for how you "don't have to worry bout the man", when it comes to marijuana in Amsterdam. As such it's sort of an embarrassingly cheesy topic for a song. On the hyper-boogie tune, "Big Fat Money", Sammy just babbles in a breathless rap-scream. The song does appropriately convey the insanity of American life where people often drown in material things they've no time to enjoy. The awful ballad "Not Enough", manifests a definite staleness. Van Hagar's well of power ballads seems to have dried up here. "Aftershock", is built on a good riff, but makes a bad song. The first guitar solo at least has a moment of pop brilliance. The second guitar solo also rocks. "Baluchitherium" is a powerful instrumental which evokes images of olympic gymnists gracefully striving to push themselves to unprecedented levels of skill and endurance; A great song to work out to. "Take Me Back", features good dynamics: Acoustic guitar verse, electric verse, and then a crunchy chorus. Ed's guitar playing is more interesting than the song itself though. The chorus riff on "Feelin'", has a great crunch to it as well, and there is a wild hyper-speed solo part. But with lyrics like, "grow it long, shave it off/life is hard, never soft", whatever Sammy's feelin' just doesn't seem very genuine.

This is perhaps the worst VH album. Yes, even worse than VHIII with Gary. With Sammy pushing 50, the strain in his voice was quite apparent and no doubt contributed to it being his last with the band. Many of the songs sound too screamy, like he was substituting bluster, for passion. If you only have one or two VH albums, pass this one over until the others turn you into a VH freak like me.

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