THEY'RE BACK (and they could still fuck your girlfriend!)

"If you throw another bottle at me I'm gonna come down there and fuck your girlfriend!"

Aaaaah, that glorious comeback from David Lee Roth, during Van Halen's 1984 Donington "Monsters of Rock" appearance, after some idiot decided it was a good idea to lob an empty bottle at one of the best rock'n'roll bands on the planet.

Reports suggest all bottle-chucking fun promptly ceased from thereon after. Now, if a certain Sam Roy Hagar had said that, would anyone have felt intimidated? I somehow doubt it. Sammy may have the vocal "chops", but he was never a threat to your girlfriend's fidelity.

Diamond Dave, on the other hand, has, is and always will be one to look out for. Or gawp at. Aspire to. Envy...Or hate. There are those  who will persevere with the absurd "he can't sing". Anyone who has even the slightest clue about music will instantly dismiss those sort of comments as "misguided" at best.

Sure, the Van Hagar years were resplendent in No1 albums and middle-aged fans, but the original line-up never had anything less than a multi-platinum seller anyway (and two Diamond ones to boot). The Sammy years were good, quite good in fact, and had their glorious moments, but that band could never, ever, "come down there and fuck your girlfriend".

The Cherone album got stick, much more than it deserved, as it wasn't a bad effort at all, delving back into some old-school VH experimentation. That was 14 years ago....So we waited....and we waited....A few tours, some bombastic gossip and whatnot....But, deep in out hearts we always knew it would happen, we always knew it made sense. It was inevitable really. No true fan cares about the reasons for it. What matters is that it happened.

Of course, this being Van Halen, it couldn't go smoothly. Hence no Michael Anthony and ,yes, we miss that chubby bassist bloke with the hideous beard and atrocious dress-sense. We do. If only for nostalgic reasons. However, those high-pitched backing vocals are still present on the new album and sound every bit as convincing (credited to Eddie's son Wolfgang, but we can hear it's mostly Dave singing the harmonies).

And so, here it is, a brand new Van Halen album with the stellar Dave Lee Roth. Their first one with him since 1984 came out in, well...1984.

Delving heavily into material written sometime between 1975-77, A Different Kind of Truth carries a similar vibe to the 1980 Van Halen classic Women and Children First.

Hardly any gloss, rarely any discernible keyboards (except on the tremendous single "Tattoo"). Explosive vintage Eddie Van Halen-meets-incendiary Alex kabooms-whacked into the Diamond Dave adventure and trimmed at the seams by Wolfgang's disciplined bass.  Add to that some ingenious Roth lyrics, only for the magnifying glass aficionados. Basically, this is one fucking triumphant kickass rock'n'roll bastard and probably the best rock album of 2012 already! I won't go through it track-by-track, as that would be pointless encroaching of my own opinion upon yours.
 
Still, my two moments of bliss are "Tattoo" and "Stay Frosty".
Anyway - they're back...so careful about throwing those bottles...