Stephen "Balance" reflected a balanced composition between Van Halen's darker edge and lighter side. This album depicted a lot of expressive statements on the lyrics, the band also revived some old riffs and arrangement, and most songs are embalmed with heavy metal touch with couple of balladic interludes. Now onto the songs' quality evaluation, I found that the latter half of the album are slightly inferior, making the whole album downgraded from the perfect rating, but overall Van Halen did an amazing job, especially lookin' back at year 1995, a tough year for glam and hard rock scene.

"The Seventh Seal" and "Don't Tell Me" are examples of Van Halen playing in the darker territory. "Can't Stop Lovin' You" and "Not Enough" are radio hits that I found to be lovable and fresh to this date. "Amsterdam" was mostly pictured the sex and drugs tale of the city with the groovy guitar and infectious chorus. "Big Money" has some jazzy jam in a rock and roll frenzy rhythm. "Aftershock"'s intro will remind you of Metallica but later evolved into a superb hard rock track. The rest are decent and with several unimportant instrumental fillers, "Balance" should only enjoy a maximum of 4 stars from me.

Negoba Van Hagar Unraveling

After the strong showing of the Carnal Knowledge album and a solid greatest hits package, Van Halen seemed to have weathered the rise of grunge. To a degree, they were aging gracefully with "Right Now" sporting a more mature take on hedonist philosophy. The video was a huge success, the band was getting critical kudos, but something was rotting from the inside. My friend mocked during the concert we watched for the CK tour..."Sammy Hagar: Singer, Guitarist, Dancer, and Philosopher." The implication was that he did none of these well.

Eddie took his new look and new guitar from CK and gave us another helping for Balance. But he and Hagar were moving in different directions. While Eddie was battling his addictions (and failing) Hagar was still celebrating his (which he continues to do). Eddie would call "Amsterdam" one of the stupidest lyrics ever put on one of his riffs, and in general felt that Hagar was stagnant while he (at the time) was trying to find some new musical life. To a large extent, this was unsuccessful. Like many bands, Van Halen had heavier guitars, but they were less edgy, less in your face. Grunge had indeed taken its toll. This was the last gasp of a failing band. It wasn't awful at the time, but it's simply unremarkable now.

Bottom Line: Past their Prime