Scott Ian nails it

[riggodrill44]

I think the correct analogy is Edward Van Halen/David Lee Roth were the Lennon/McCartney of their era. EVH has the lightning... but the Diamond One was the thunder. Unchained rocks... but it's incomplete without "Blue eyed murder in a size five dress." "I'm the One" IS metal guitar that lights your hair on fire... but... ba ba ba... shooby doo wah. It's a shame that pride/ego wrecked it... but I guess it was inevitable. I'm thankful that my formative years were during their time together. #gratitude Younger people can't possibly comprehend what happened and older people didn't experience it the same way as someone born in 1965.

I'm back. Ha. My dudes... I got a lot of feelings (ha) and this place, the Roth Army Forum, is the only place where I can share them and be understood. But, I was thinking about what I wrote above and it reminded me of something I posted here back in 2012. Based on a review of ADKOT. I'm re-posting it here as it has a Lennon/McCartney reference. I know I shouldn't care so much about this anymore... but.. Eddie and Diamond Dave... they obviously mean a lot to me. Eddie's passing and then Wolf's arrival have stirred up a lot of thoughts.

Posted on Roth Army site back on February 5, 2012.

I agree with this part of the Music Radar review and some of the observations about the songs. "The Van Halen of 2012 comes off as age-proof, confident monsters, chewing up the scenery with the top down and flipping the bird to anyone who's got a problem with that."

I, like others who have posted on this thread, have been taking turns with "my favorite song" on the record. As I write this, it's "Outta Space". Jesus H. Christ!

Some other quick thoughts... this is the kick in the ass that hard rock needed... again. Similar in style to the kick it received in 1978. I mean, this is a blowout. Nothing else in rock has been close to this in many years... wall to wall... first song to last song. As a musician, I sense this record having an influence for the next 10 years. No more looking at your shoes, whining that you're a loser baby so why don't you kill me, tuning down lower than the last guy, stale safe rock anthems that don't really mean anything.... and fucking let the guitar player melt faces, for christ sakes. Swagger is a word I read used here before. This record definitely has swagger. Not some pimp, jive ass bullshit. But real swagger. You gotta walk the walk swagger. James Brown, Jimi Hendrix, Elvis Presley swagger. You know... "We got paid $1.5 Million to headline the US Festival 30 years ago and we're selling out every arena across North America in 2012" swagger.

I guess we know now why it took so long to get this record. Them dudes have been practicing. Wolfie is fucking KILLING IT. Ed deserves "Comeback Player of the Year", Diamond Dave is "MVP"... but Wolfie has got to be "Rookie of the Year". This is like Gale Sayers or Randy Moss in their rookie year. "Here I am, I DESERVE to be here, get out of my fucking way and there is no way you can stop me." Listen on your headphones to he and Alex behind the solo's... they are locked in the pocket and cooking with grease... then listen to he and Ed shred and match runs note for note... and then he is singing back ups, too. It really is ridiculous. This is like "Eat 'em and Smile" territory... they've laid a marker by which all other guitarists/bassists/drummers will be judged. I can hear people saying this over the next five years, "yeah, he's good... but he doesn't play like Wolfie." People will be saying that. He's that fucking good, dude. Remember when Dave opened the EEAS tour with "Shyboy"? I would love to hear them open with "China Town".

Dave expresses a lot of ideas on this record. I think it'll take me a few months to get all of them. And there is a passion in his delivery that is very pronounced. I read a review where a guy panned "Blood and Fire". The reviewer didn't mention the spoken part in the middle of the song. You CANNOT talk about that song and not mention that part. The way he says "SAY IT LIKE YOU MEAN IT" is spine tingling. Yeah, I'm drinking the Kool Aid... but you cannot listen to that song and not FEEL his meaning. Or on "Bullethead" when he spits out "yeah I'm rolling slowly... but I'm ahead of you"... can you feel it? I do. I think it's clear that this record means EVERYTHING to him and he reached way deep down inside... to places that only some people know about... and delivered this work of art.

But, it's not just him. It's the band, too. And the point/counterpoint between those two cats (Dave and Ed) is on a different level. It's organic and real and just can't be duplicated. It's like Lennon/McCartney. Great individually... but really special together. It makes sense that Ed has always played with his brother on drums and now his son on bass. The same flesh and blood with a sense of timing and rhythm that perhaps dudes with different genes just can't lock in on the same level. Then pour the best storyteller and world's most confident performer on top and you get "A Different Kind of Truth".

Other people have written what I'm about to write. This (new record, tour dates, etc.) means a lot to me. I have a connection to Van Halen that I can't explain to other people who don't have the same connection. It's like "Close Encounters of the Third Kind"... we gotta get to Devils Tower... but we don't really know why. Hearing this record...coming to the place in time we're at right now (new record, tour dates, etc.)... it is up there with getting married, having a kid, completing Ironman (4 times!) and work world success. It has made me very happy. I knew it was going to be great when it happened. But I didn't know it would be this great.

[Terry]

I'm back. Ha. My dudes... I got a lot of feelings (ha) and this place, the Roth Army Forum, is the only place where I can share them and be understood. But, I was thinking about what I wrote above and it reminded me of something I posted here back in 2012. Based on a review of ADKOT. I'm re-posting it here as it has a Lennon/McCartney reference. I know I shouldn't care so much about this anymore... but.. Eddie and Diamond Dave... they obviously mean a lot to me. Eddie's passing and then Wolf's arrival have stirred up a lot of thoughts.

Posted on Roth Army site back on February 5, 2012.

I agree with this part of the Music Radar review and some of the observations about the songs. "The Van Halen of 2012 comes off as age-proof, confident monsters, chewing up the scenery with the top down and flipping the bird to anyone who's got a problem with that."

I, like others who have posted on this thread, have been taking turns with "my favorite song" on the record. As I write this, it's "Outta Space". Jesus H. Christ!

Some other quick thoughts... this is the kick in the ass that hard rock needed... again. Similar in style to the kick it received in 1978. I mean, this is a blowout. Nothing else in rock has been close to this in many years... wall to wall... first song to last song. As a musician, I sense this record having an influence for the next 10 years. No more looking at your shoes, whining that you're a loser baby so why don't you kill me, tuning down lower than the last guy, stale safe rock anthems that don't really mean anything.... and fucking let the guitar player melt faces, for christ sakes. Swagger is a word I read used here before. This record definitely has swagger. Not some pimp, jive ass bullshit. But real swagger. You gotta walk the walk swagger. James Brown, Jimi Hendrix, Elvis Presley swagger. You know... "We got paid $1.5 Million to headline the US Festival 30 years ago and we're selling out every arena across North America in 2012" swagger.

I guess we know now why it took so long to get this record. Them dudes have been practicing. Wolfie is fucking KILLING IT. Ed deserves "Comeback Player of the Year", Diamond Dave is "MVP"... but Wolfie has got to be "Rookie of the Year". This is like Gale Sayers or Randy Moss in their rookie year. "Here I am, I DESERVE to be here, get out of my fucking way and there is no way you can stop me." Listen on your headphones to he and Alex behind the solo's... they are locked in the pocket and cooking with grease... then listen to he and Ed shred and match runs note for note... and then he is singing back ups, too. It really is ridiculous. This is like "Eat 'em and Smile" territory... they've laid a marker by which all other guitarists/bassists/drummers will be judged. I can hear people saying this over the next five years, "yeah, he's good... but he doesn't play like Wolfie." People will be saying that. He's that fucking good, dude. Remember when Dave opened the EEAS tour with "Shyboy"? I would love to hear them open with "China Town".

Dave expresses a lot of ideas on this record. I think it'll take me a few months to get all of them. And there is a passion in his delivery that is very pronounced. I read a review where a guy panned "Blood and Fire". The reviewer didn't mention the spoken part in the middle of the song. You CANNOT talk about that song and not mention that part. The way he says "SAY IT LIKE YOU MEAN IT" is spine tingling. Yeah, I'm drinking the Kool Aid... but you cannot listen to that song and not FEEL his meaning. Or on "Bullethead" when he spits out "yeah I'm rolling slowly... but I'm ahead of you"... can you feel it? I do. I think it's clear that this record means EVERYTHING to him and he reached way deep down inside... to places that only some people know about... and delivered this work of art.

But, it's not just him. It's the band, too. And the point/counterpoint between those two cats (Dave and Ed) is on a different level. It's organic and real and just can't be duplicated. It's like Lennon/McCartney. Great individually... but really special together. It makes sense that Ed has always played with his brother on drums and now his son on bass. The same flesh and blood with a sense of timing and rhythm that perhaps dudes with different genes just can't lock in on the same level. Then pour the best storyteller and world's most confident performer on top and you get "A Different Kind of Truth".

Other people have written what I'm about to write. This (new record, tour dates, etc.) means a lot to me. I have a connection to Van Halen that I can't explain to other people who don't have the same connection. It's like "Close Encounters of the Third Kind"... we gotta get to Devils Tower... but we don't really know why. Hearing this record...coming to the place in time we're at right now (new record, tour dates, etc.)... it is up there with getting married, having a kid, completing Ironman (4 times!) and work world success. It has made me very happy. I knew it was going to be great when it happened. But I didn't know it would be this great.

For me, perhaps more today than closer to the initial release date, ADKOT...it was like harkening back to a point in time that is...obviously - because it was Van Halen - particular to the style of rock that only Van Halen could do, or did...

Van Halen with Roth at the helm...it was...is...remains...a very, very special band for me...special to the point that what was created between 1977 and 1984 still keeps resonating and survived all the missteps and misfires that were served up under the Van Halen name post-1984. If I'm being honest, the majority of what transpired under the Van Halen name post-1984 hasn't meant that much to me.

When Roth left the band in 1985, to me it always felt like something was being cut short when there was still more juice in the tank in terms of creating excellent music goes. In reality, that may not have been the case: it could well be that the band with Roth fronting was defying the odds lasting as long as it did to begin with. However, regardless of the truth of that, it always felt like CVH concluded with unfinished business.

The two BOV1 tracks and the ADKOT album were kind of like glimpses of what the band could have went on to do if Roth hadn't quit in 1985. I mean, obviously they WERE what the band went on to with Roth after he quit in 1985, but you know what I mean.

And by the time ADKOT came out...bands just weren't making that kind of rock music anymore. At least none that I've heard, although to be fair I haven't kept up with much of anything in contemporary rock in 20 years, and what I HAVE heard sounds...posed, forced and uninspired. CVH may have been posed in part, but it was forceful over forced and certainly wasn't lacking in the inspiration department.

So whatever criticisms I have re: ADKOT (a totally disposable track like The Trouble With Never which, to be frank, sounds like a lesser track off of one of Dave's solo albums) are sort of eclipsed by being thankful for having the band making the effort at such a late date as ADKOT was and managing to conjure up the magic again.