Van Halen

Van Halen III

Gary and His Mom Think This is The Best VH Album!

Review Score:

(6/10)
You know I was ready to tear apart Van Halen 3 and pulled it out again to listen once more. I was kind of surprised. Let's face it, Gary Cherone had a thankless job, and was caught up in the turmoil of Eddie's ego. I was really disappointed, because I remember the rumors surrounding the next studio after the "Best Of Vol. 1" came out, was that David Lee Roth would once again front the band, and when I found out it was the lead singer from Extreme and not Diamond Dave....well needless to say I was against the album before it even hit the shelves. So VH3 came out and like almost everyone else who picked it up out of loyalty to the band, I hated it. It's been shelved for about 5 years, and when the new greatest hits package came out, I decided to start going through the bands studio albums again. There are some really good tunes on VH3, and now that enough time has passed, my expectations maybe a little lower, I was able to listen again without all the baggage. "Neworld" kicks things off, and it's a cool little instrumental. Followed by a pretty cool, distinctly Van Halen sounding "Without You". "From Afar" has a pretty cool guitar track and a different rhythm that also works well. "Dirty Water Dog" is a pretty neat song as well, It's just a shame you can't understand half of what is being sung. The Alan Parson Project sounding "Once" is also a pretty cool little song that sounds so different from something you expect on a Van Halen album. The highlight of the album for me is the tune "Fire in the Hole", the song just straight forward rocks, with a greath chorus that you will keep singing. But then VH3 gets bad with "Josephina". From "Josephina" on the songs take a nosedive, ending with the awful "How Many Say I" which features Eddie on vocals. I would love to have heard David Lee Roth take on some of these songs, Gary sounds too close to Sammy, and never comes into his own. The production on the disk is pretty lousy as well. The backing vocals are all but lost on "Without You" and "Dirty Water Dog". But I would still take VH3 over the lousy album "Balance".

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