Van Halen

Van Halen III

Give it another listen!!!

Review Score:

(10/10)
I can relate to the last reviewer who shelved VH3 for the past five years. I too had high expectations when this came out and I was disappointed. So now that VH is back touring, I decided to put together a single MP3 disk of all my Van Halen albums. I debated whether to even put any VH3 songs on. In fairness, I never really gave this album a thorough listening. So I forced myself to put it in my CD walkman for a week and listen to nothing but this album.

I now love this album!!! Eddie's guitar work is very good. Much better than the last couple of Hagar ones. Eddie's playing had really got watered down on those ones. He is back with some really creative stuff here. And, in my opinion, the solos on this album are his best EVER. His tone is great and there is some real soul in his playing.

There are some weak spots on the album. I really don't like How Many Say I. I really like the songs where Gary sounds like Gary and not Sammy - like From Afar, Once, Josephina, Year to the Day. Other tunes are classic VH - Without You, Fire in the Hole, Ballot or the Bullet. Apart from How Many Say I, there are a lot of good tunes here, you just have to listen past the first 30 seconds of the song.

This album is much better than rated and considering all the poor rock music out there for the past 10 years, this album will gain in popularity over time. I would rate it about 3.5 stars but I give it a five to offset all those who gave it 1 star without actually listening to it.

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