10 Delayed Hard Rock Albums That Weren't Worth The Wait

Van Halen didn't deserve to have their third self titled outing as their swan song. Since their move to something new with Gary Cherone went over about as well as an atheist at a church rally, the kings of glam metal were looking like they were about to slowly fade away into irrelevance. Even when the unthinkable happened when David Lee Roth rejoined the band, the accompanying album was a lot more spotty than you probably remember.

Considering this would be the next Roth fronted album since 1984, there was pretty much no way that A Different Kind of Truth could have worked on that level. When you listen to the record though, there's still that magic in there, with a lot of these songs being relics from the early days dusted off and put into a new context. Now we have a classic Van Halen album...just with all the trappings of a modern Van Halen record.

That's not putting it lightly either. The songs on here sound like they could have been absolutely amazing, but the production doesn't give many opportunities for the bass to shine through and hearing Roth squawk his way through some of the higher passages is a little disheartening for the die hards to really accept. While it doesn't come close to the early days of Van Halen, this is still the best the band could have hoped for for going out on their own terms.