CD Review: Van Halen's A Different Kind of Truth

Besides going to see Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace in 3-D last week, I also picked up Van Halen’s new CD A Different Kind of Truth, planning to familiarize myself with their first new music in almost fifteen years before going to their concert in St. Paul this May.

The new CD starts off with the first single “Tattoo.” While the “tattoo, tattoo” chorus seems a little corny, Eddie Van Halen’s signature guitar licks save this song. I’m starting to enjoy this song the more I listen to it. The next song “She’s The One” I took a liking to much quicker, because it’s a fast-tempo song  that’s similar in pace to most of their classic songs from the late Seventies and early Eighties.

While Eddie Van Halen’s son Wolfgang can’t quite replace original bass guitarist Michael Anthony’s sound, his bass playing meshes well with the thirteen songs on this disc. In fact, when I close my eyes and listen to this CD, a few songs sound just like they could’ve come off one of their classic albums from over three decades ago!

This CD is chock full of a lot of energy and enthusiasm from everyone in the band, and I enjoyed reading the lyrics from each song. A few lyrics by original frontman “Diamond” David Lee Roth even had me laughing out loud. One particular noteworthy track, the speedy number called “Bullethead”  , a song I would assume addresses road rage, has the following lyrics:

My karma just ran over your dogma

I can feel your pain….

How many roads must a man walk down

Before he admits he’s lost -

Do you really drive this way

Just to piss me off?

I’ve only listened to this CD 3 or 4 times so far, but it’s growing on me with each listen. Songs like “Blood and Fire” and “Stay Frosty” remind me of classic Van Halen tracks (I’ve heard that they often use early samples and demos when starting new songs, so I’m not surprised. "Stay Frosty" sounds like it could be the long lost twin or B-side of the classic acoustic-based "Ice Cream Man" from their debut album ), and it sets a good foundation for hopefully even more new music down the road.  I’m also looking forward to hearing many of these songs smattered among their classics live in concert in three short months!

That’s all for now, so until later, have a great day!

Jar-Jar in 3-D?

I've been a big fan of Star Wars since I was about eight years old. I had about 40-50 of the Kenner action figures, a Hoth playset, and a couple of hand-me-down toys, a Rebel laser gun that made the sound of a dentist's drill when you pressed the button on the handle (provided you had batteries in the toy), and an Imperial TIE fighter. I read the Marvel comics stories of Luke, Leia, Han, C-3PO and the rest of the cast of characters religiously too.

Although I'm not a huge fan of the recent prequel movies, there are a few parts that are important in the overall story's evolution. When I heard that Episode I: The Phantom Menace was being re-released in 3-D, I was skeptical, given the announced changes George Lucas had already made to some of his movies for the Blu-ray release (which I've mentioned in an earlier blog post), but being the Star Wars geek that I am, I decided to give it a try last weekend.

The last 3-D movie I saw in a theater was James Cameron's epic Avatar, which was filmed for 3-D. I thought it would be interesting to see how this Star Wars film was retrofitted for 3-D a decade after its original release. To my surprise, it was better than I expected it to be. Not every aspect was set in 3-D, so it's not too rough on those who have a hard time watching 3-D films. There are certain characters or items onscreen that are set in 3-D, and others that are not. A few times some of the 3-D items in the foreground or items in the background seemed a little blurry, but thankfully that didn't last long. All of the subtitles and the traditional opening crawl are in 3-D, which I expected.

The movie itself is probably my least favorite of the six Star Wars films, given the propensity of the silly Gungans, especially Jar-Jar Binks, who is reviled by a lot of Star Wars "purists." The Jedi fight scenes with Darth Maul are rather sharp in this release, and the digital Yoda, which was corrected for the Blu-ray movie versions that I have yet to watch, is an improvement over the out of place puppet that Frank Oz used in the original release of this film.

When I got to the theater, I noticed a lot of families and kids in attendance, so I'd say it's a good family film for a weekend if you don't mind spending the extra cash on the 3-D glasses and the usual theater fare. I don't know if I'll see the rest of the prequel films in 3-D (I might at least wait until I've seen the Blu-ray versions first), but I might come back to see how Boba Fett, Lando Calrissian, the creatures in Jabba's Palace, and some of the Rebel/Empire battles are fitted for 3-D decades after they first wowed fans.

Until next time, have a great day & hoping all is well!