Official "A Different Kind of Truth" Album Review Thread

[Matt White]

Florentine: On Tattoo "The chorus is corny...The lyrics are corny, but you know, but then again...you know...Dave's never been a great "lyricist"...so I take that into consideration...."

I knew this guy was a fucking tool!!!

FUCK YOU FLORENTINE!!!!

[Matt White]

LOL He loves the rest of the CD!!!! Jim....you fucker!!!!

"This shit is better than Chickenfoot...better than both Chickenfoot..."

[private parts]

Walmart 8:30 a.m. Late to work. Take deep breath. ADKOT cranked to 12........
Holy shitsky. this sounds a thousand times better than listening to clips on cheap computer speakers.. Damn!
Feel like everything is right with the world again- planets aligned. Ok I'm 30 min late to work.
F-em all!

[ELVIS]

Got mine at super walmart at 4am but they only had the standard CD...

[fourthcoming]

This is great.....Here on Long Island on 102.3 WBAB it's Van Halen Day!!!!.....playing nothing but Diamond Dave VH all day and ADKOT in it's entirity at 7 pm. Doesn't get much better than that.....I'm driving my truck and I hear Little Dreamer, As Is, Beautiful Girls, Sinners Swing, Drop Dead Legs, So This Is Love, I'm The One, Top Jimmy, Dancing In The Streets, In A Simple Rhyme...with the ending jam that finishes WACF, Women In Love, Jump, and China Town. Something about hearing the new tunes on the radio really pumps me up. How the hell do you beat that? People calling up the radio station requesting new tunes saying how much they love the new stuff.....V fuckin' H

[private parts]

This is great.....Here on Long Island on 102.3 WBAB it's Van Halen Day!!!!.....playing nothing but Diamond Dave VH all day and ADKOT in it's entirity at 7 pm. Doesn't get much better than that.....I'm driving my truck and I hear Little Dreamer, As Is, Beautiful Girls, Sinners Swing, Drop Dead Legs, So This Is Love, I'm The One, Top Jimmy, Dancing In The Streets, In A Simple Rhyme...with the ending jam that finishes WACF, Women In Love, Jump, and China Town. Something about hearing the new tunes on the radio really pumps me up. How the hell do you beat that? People calling up the radio station requesting new tunes saying how much they love the new stuff.....V fuckin' H

Very Cool! I'm listening to WBAB stream now

[slowhand]

I don't even know how many times I've listened to the CD now. The only thing I wish they would have done different is kept the levels down in mastering. I guess it's to be expected of CD's released now. I just hope the vinyl isn't as compressed. The CD sounds great, but it's a little straining on the ears. Here is an analysis of the dynamic range.

DR Peak RMS Duration Track
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
DR5 -0.10 dB -6.47 dB 4:44 Tattoo
DR5 -0.10 dB -5.61 dB 2:58 She's The Woman
DR6 -0.10 dB -7.14 dB 3:44 You and Your Blues
DR6 -0.10 dB -6.78 dB 3:15 China Town
DR5 -0.10 dB -6.86 dB 4:27 Blood and Fire
DR5 -0.10 dB -5.93 dB 2:32 Bullethead
DR5 -0.10 dB -7.13 dB 4:47 As Is
DR5 -0.10 dB -7.24 dB 3:48 Honeybabysweetiedoll
DR6 0.00 dB -6.66 dB 4:00 The Trouble With Never
DR5 -0.10 dB -6.08 dB 2:54 Outta Space
DR6 -0.10 dB -7.80 dB 4:08 Stay Frosty
DR5 -0.10 dB -6.91 dB 3:52 Big River
DR6 0.00 dB -7.51 dB 5:04 Beats Workin'
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I did a little playing around a with decompressor tool and an expander, and made myself another CD just for listening. It's not as good as if it were released that way, but I can actually crank it up louder on my surround sound stereo, even though it's less than half the voltage output.

[DLR Bridge]

Best Buy had standard and deluxe, but no T-shirt version. Grabbed a deluxe. Is the cover on the shirt? I can do without and will probably grab a shirt at the show. Little surprised that there is not a single band picture. Great to see Dave's art and words. Now, if I could only blast this at work.

[mewisemagic]

Got mine at super walmart at 4am but they only had the standard CD...

They had all 3 versions at my local Wal-mart this morning..

[ThrillsNSpills]

Well Target was a fail as there was zero on the shelves. They had a couple chifus though.
Off to Best Buy. SCORE Deluxe. One of the managers came out and asked me all these questions about the band and that he never grew up with this kind of music but he was curious. I guess the buzz on this thing is far reaching. Open-mindedness is a good thing .I told him to get a copy.

I'm dealing with the downtown version of You and Your Blues. What a sizzling opening riff while Dave is telling stories while they play the riff. You're going to love the story Dave tells at the beginning.
Just put the disc on and suddenly it's VERY loud in here.
Long time coming. Cheers people. Enjoy

[DLR'sCock]

Target has deluxe versions, and I am sure Best Buy does as well.

[DLR'sCock]

I went to Target this morning, and it wasn't stocked on the shelves yet, so I asked.......and lo behold a couple of minutes later I picked up mine straight out of the box they were delivered in.......new VH and the GIANTS won?.......I don't know if it get's any better......

[fryingdutchman]

Here's a review from The Onion A.V. Club....

by Steven Hyden February 7, 2012
Van Halen
A Different Kind Of Truth
Interscope
B Community Grade


There are plenty of reasons to be wary of the new Van Halen album, A Different Kind Of Truth. But for the sake of time, let’s narrow them down to three:

1.The lead single, “Tattoo,” was pretty bad. And after hearing the album, the song’s badness suggests that three-quarters of the band—the part actually named “Van Halen”—actively wanted to make David Lee Roth look foolish by putting it out as a single. It turns out that “Tattoo” is one of the two or three worst songs on the record; it’s also one of the two or three tracks that rely heaviest on Diamond Dave’s hepcat-on-Dexedrine shtick. The song’s odd, vocal-heavy mix emphasizes both Roth’s distance from the Van Halen clan—the band sounds like it’s playing in a studio on the other side of L.A.—and how horrendous the lyrics are. (“Swap-meet sally / Tramp-stamp cat / Mousewife to momshell in the time it took to get that new tattoo.”) Considering how many other classic-sounding Van Halen songs there are on Truth—“Blood And Fire” gets within spitting distance of greatness—the selection of “Tattoo” as the introductory track is explicable only as a subtle DLR pisstake. “You wanted Diamond Dave? Here’s your precious Diamond Dave, suckers!”

2.If we assume that the Van Halen brothers still despise Roth, but decided to get back together with him anyway, then their refusal to also reunite with the infinitely more laid-back and tolerable Michael Anthony is even more nonsensical and infuriating.

3.In spite of everything, A Different Kind Of Truth is a good record. It’s probably as good as can be reasonably expected. Instrumentally, Van Halen is still one of the slickest, most powerful machines in all of hard rock. And while Roth’s limited vocal range has shrunk down to glorified talk-scatting, his voice remains an integral part of the band’s sound. (Also, Wolfgang Van Halen must be complimented on his convincing impersonation of Anthony’s pivotal backing vocals.) All of this is surprisingly, even shockingly, true. And yet: What does it matter? Van Halen reuniting with Roth is the equivalent of 10 Arrested Development movies for arena-rock fans. But aren’t there at least 20 songs those people would rather see live than the new “Honeybabysweetiedoll”?
The nagging sense that A Different Kind Of Truth is an unnecessary excuse for Van Halen to tour with Roth again is probably the biggest strike against it. Nobody expects (or perhaps even wants) Van Halen to be a creatively active institution again. The public is more than happy to hear “Panama” and “Runnin’ With The Devil” in concert and pay handsomely for the privilege. (Not that Truth is necessarily all “new” material; as Roth recently confessed to the Los Angeles Times, the band reworked ancient songs that pre-date its 1978 debut for the album. So, really, Van Halen is playing a bunch of oldies from the ’70s on stage and on record this year.)

The pre-release coverage of Truth has focused on Roth returning to the Van Halen fold, but after playing the album several times, something that should’ve been obvious but has been curiously forgotten once again becomes abundantly clear: Eddie Van Halen is the best goddamn guitar player on the planet. Even after losing part of his tongue, even after hip replacement surgery, even after rehab, even after that Sammy Hagar book made him look like hobo subsisting on a steady diet of red wine and Domino’s Pizza—Eddie Van Halen can still make his guitar sound like the world’s finest symphony orchestra blasting through outer space at a million miles per hour.

You want a reason for A Different Kind Of Truth to exist? How about the fact that Eddie Van Halen hasn’t made a record in 14 years? That’s a long time for the best at what he does to not be doing what he does. Yes, he’s toured a few times; once with Hagar in 2004, and then with Roth in 2007 and ’08. And Gene Hackman probably still recites inspirational lines from Hoosiers on occasion at parties; it still sucks that he hasn’t made a movie since 2004.

Fortunately, Eddie doesn’t appear to have lost any speed in his fingers. The guitar solo on “Big River” attempts to cram the dynamics of his game-changing instrumental “Eruption” into the space of several breathtaking seconds. On “As Is,” he oscillates between filthy sludge, pyrotechnic tapping, and stinging country-blues licks. And “Outta Space” exhibits his signature ability to be heavy and fleet-footed at the same time—like a tank with the engine of a 747 that’s driven by Vin Diesel.

At 13 songs, Truth would be 25 percent better if it lost 25 percent of its songs. The album’s middle third—the part between the rousing, Who-biting “Blood And Fire” and “Outta Space”—sags due to a deficit of hooks and tunefulness. (Though one of those songs, “The Trouble With Never,” should have lent its title to the record.) But even when the songs aren’t great, Truth almost always sounds great. On “China Town,” also known as “the song where Eddie Van Halen’s guitar sounds like an Atari 2600,” the main attraction isn’t the chorus but the way Eddie locks into Alex Van Halen’s furious, double bass drum pummeling. (Oh yeah, forgot to mention this: Alex Van Halen remains a thoroughly kick-ass drummer.)

A Different Kind Of Truth might not be an all-time Van Halen album, or have any songs that belong on a best-of mixtape. (Though, seriously, “Blood And Fire” is at least worth a look.) But after so many years of fumbling dysfunction that reduced the once-proud Van Halen name to a laughingstock, A Different Kind Of Truth matters because it’s a reminder of why this band mattered. And, yes, Roth deserves some of the credit for that. For whatever reason, when Roth is in the band, Eddie Van Halen plays guitar like the world wants him to play guitar. Even if he’s doing it purely out of spite, so the other guy doesn’t get all of the spotlight—well, sometimes that’s the very thing that makes great bands great. Together, Eddie and Diamond Dave have achieved a simple yet hard-to-pull-off goal with A Different Kind Of Truth: Sounding like the Van Halen we (want to) remember.

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[KSTONER]

Woke up this morning feeling kinda bummed....
Decided to check my Amazon orders....IT'S here?!?!

No...Amazon's never on time.
But I've been taking strange chances lately...I go down to the front desk of my shitty dorm....

And now I'm on As Is (favorite track so far). My day has been made.

[fourthcoming]

This review above my current post was written by a clueless douchebag.......not you Kstoner.....the Onoin's review.......rediculous......Nobody expects (or perhaps even wants) Van Halen to be a creative institution again????? This dude has obviously never visited the Roth Army.