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Metal Messiah
07. März 2024
THE DAVID LEE ROTH ERA: 1978-1984 !
This is a really good Box Set; it spans the entire David Roth era, the era I grew up with. All 6 CDs are Remastered and are the card board sleeves, also known as LP replica types, which virtually all Box Sets come in. I totally love the faithful art restoration on the back of these sleeves, as they feature the exact LP album covers. I never understood why over 99% of all CD artwork comes with cheap looking back covers for CDs. Here, thankfully that mistake is not made.
The music is typically Lee Roth Van Halen, except for Diver Down; that was the only dud in this otherwise great collect, and is the main reason for me to deduct 1 Star of the rating. However, I've to say I only ever listened once to this decades ago on vinyl and anyways; it's a Van Halen covers album, just so you know, hence; it has no original songs from the band.
Another reason for deducting is that there's no booklet in this Set, just frually the CD replica sleeves! This is regrettable, as a nice booklet would really be an astethic addition to make it feel like the producers actually cared about their product, and of course it would help in terms of liner notes, so that newcomers to the band have some necessary background info about the band & the albums.
As to the albums themselves: the 1st was their generally most beloved and its truly excellent from start to finish, its also a important historical land mark album for US Heavy Metal. However, it's the only real Metal albums in the Box. The 2nd was another very good album, but much softer in terms of the guitars, it's also all killer no filler, but sounds almost disco like when compared to the debut CD. The 3rd was when signs of song writing quality decay became apparent: Nonetheless, "And The Cradle Will Rock..." & "Everybody Wants Some!!" are great hymns, but after that it's as if they decided to just go through the motions, because the rest of the album is only a bit above mediocrity. Of course, this is a purely subjective view. The 4th CD: Fair Warning was a real comeback album for them, as almost everything on it is good to very good, esp. compared to Women and Children First (CD 3). I already explained why I dislike CD 5, so that leaves us with the last one CD 6: 1984, this one is generally really good, but also a bit of a hit and miss affair. Esp. the last 2 songs are fillers, the rest is really good though.
What I noticed was just how short these albums all are, except perhaps for Diver Down, they're all around 32 - 34 Minutes in playing time.
In short, I'd say if you're like me and had 1 of these albums Remastered and 1 non Remastered, I still think it's worth getting this Box Set, as its way cheaper than buying them separately in Jewel cases. At 24.99 for 6 CD you're getting each CD at just 4.165 Euros, a real sweet deal.
Oh, and I almost forgot, of course the legendary Eddie Van Halen plays astonishing guitars on all these albums; he was undoubtedly one of the greatest guitar players up there with Hendrix, Blackmore, & Malmsteen just to name a few from Hard Rock & Metal.