I, myself, have no good excuse for why it didn’t hit me at the time. When it came out, I bought it immediately, and I played the first half of the record quite a bit. After a couple of months, I bailed on this record and only had a couple of spots strong in my memory.

That was a huge mistake.

Here’s a video where I explain what I thought then, what I think now, and what a doofus I am for not catching on in 2012. The lead single, “Tattoo”, was something I didn’t care for at all from the first time I heard it, but that isn’t any excuse. There is enough good songwriting and brilliant guitar from the master himself to enjoy this record.

There’s plenty of clever, silly David Lee Roth commentary throughout and it was still a big deal that he was back again, even after all of the back-and-forth that went on between the band and its lead singers.

But this is a great, great, great guitar record. Riffs, hooks, leads, the great Edward Van Halen gave us a treasure trove on this album. It doesn’t sound that much like the first six records with Roth and it is quite a bit longer than any of those at 50:12. It is different, indeed. But it’s a great look at what Edward Van Halen was up to at that point, with Roth on vocals and his son in the band on bass.

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