What a great comeback album. I'm loving it.
The critics are liking it too. The lead single Tattoo was a bit hit and miss but as part of the album it all works so well.
No syths this time fortunately and plenty of awesome Eddie Van Halen solos.

I downloaded from Amazon last night. I have only listened to half of it but I love it, it is typically Van Halen. This is coming from a fan of David Lee Roth and Sammy Hagar.

It was the deluxe version I downloaded from Amazon and I am watching the videos that came with it. Awesome, just awesome.

It's alright.

I'm a massive hard-rock and metal fan, but Van Halen are one of those bands who I never really 'got'. I enjoy the odd song and EVH is one of the most influential guitarists of all-time (something he never gets enough credit for), but I never understood what they had that means they can sell-out stadiums in the USA.

I'm loving it. In fact, it's great that they hav launched back with a completely new studio album and not just a bunch of repackaged stuff with Just A Gigolo on the B-side....

Same. The problem i had with them is the Eddie Van Halen solos regularly dont fit the song.. its like the obligatory solo has been tagged onto it. They sound abit flaky. I prefer EVH on his own.

VH never really achieved global success.. very much limited to US arenas. Similar actually to our very own Def Leppard.. much much bigger in the US than here, although DL did become successful in the UK from 1987 onward.

For years i thought VH were a one hit wonder (Jump)..before i realised that they had other chart success in the US. Sammy Hagar is a great vocalist btw.

I think it didn't help that Van Halen never toured the UK that often.

The first appeared in the UK when they supported Black Sabbath on their Never Say Die tour and, by all accounts, blew Sabbath off the stage every night.

When their first album, Van Halen, came out it was like nothing that had gone before and influenced pretty much everything that followed.

They did a headline UK tour for their third album, Women and Children First in 1980 and played Monsters Of Rock in 1984 but, certainly with Dave Lee Roth, that was it.

They probably became more well know by most people because Eddie Van Halen did the guitar solo on Michael Jackson's Beat It than anything they did as a band. Certainly I think their UK chart success with Jump was as a consequence of Beat It.

As for the new album, to be honest I'm not that bothered. I saw them in 1984, I think more people went to Monsters Of Rock that year because Van Halen played than to see the headliners AC/DC, and I'm quite happy to keep my memories of how great they were in their prime.

Everyone blew Sabbath off the stage in the late 70s, they were doped up so high im surprised they made it on stage. The end was nigh and Ozzy left. Hardly a ringing endorsement by comparing.

As regards the first VH album, "their" biggest hit is a cover (The Kinks' "You Really Got Me"), so yes, it was very much like had gone on before. The Kinks song (according to the rock hall of fame} "jump-started the band's career". They were reliant on the work of another band. Now, the instrumental Eruption, EVH solo, thats his work not the bands, and thats the criticism i would have is that his work is separate to the bands. Its his solo stuff tagged along with the group. Having said that at least Eruption was just EVH, there are many VH songs with his obligatory solo appearing in it which doesnt fit the rest of the song, Its shoehorned in. Besides Jump their material is weak. Individually they are good, and Hagar who came later was a good vocalist, they just sounded flaky together.

They did support Bon Jovi at Cardiff Arms Park in 1995, but that was when Sammy Hagar was fronting them.