Last Friday Van Halen curiously released a 2-CD “Expanded Edition” of their 1995 album Balance. I have to admit being a little surprised to see that. I purchased Balance (on CD) the day it came out that January of ’95 and eventually sold it at the used record/CD store. I had really liked the first single that had preceded the album, “Don’t Tell Me (What Love Can Do),” with Hagar shouting about guns and heroin and Eddie’s guitar torching everything within hearing distance. It was a dark song and it foreshadowed a rather dark album. Prior, in 1991 they had released For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge that boasted three big singles: “Poundcake,” “On Top Of The World” and “Right Now” with that iconic piano. Not only did they have the three big singles, the track “Runaround” got quite a bit of airplay as well. I was surprised to see, while doing my research that the two albums both went 3x platinum. I would have bet cash money that F.U.C.K. would have sold more albums. Maybe Balance has its fans…or maybe it was career momentum that helped it sell.

I don’t know what happened to Van Hagar, er I mean Van Halen. I saw them on the 5150 tour in Wichita in ’86 and I was right up front, pressed against the barricade. Eddie Van Halen looked so happy. I thought Sammy Hagar would end his career fronting Van Halen at that point. But maybe Eddie was just happy at that juncture to not be playing with David Lee Roth anymore… their mutual enmity is well documented. But how, over a decade, did this lineup go from “Why Can’t This Be Love,” or “Summer Nights” to having chanting monks open the record? Was it an attempt to incorporate grunge type dourness? I do know Eddie was trying to get sober and that can be stressful. I know it was anxiety inducing when I quit drinking for five weeks earlier this year…it wasn’t even February. I believe there were some changes in management for the band and that caused friction between the brothers and Sammy. And I do know their reputation as a “good time party band” drove Eddie crazy. He wanted to be taken so seriously. I don’t think he understood how much we all worshiped him as a guitar player. With all that as a backdrop, when I first heard this album in early 1995 it just felt like something was off. There was still some good stuff – Eddie’s playing is always fascinating to listen to – but you could tell the chemistry between these guys had changed. Like the Faces last album Ooh La La, there was one or two too many instrumentals (3 in total). They were stretching their sound but I’m not sure it was always successful… I remember thinking at the time, this might be a transitional album to something new. Sadly that something new ended up being Van Halen III, with Gary Cerone on the lead vocals.

I thought this expanded edition might be a good time for me to sit down and really re-evaluate Balance again. It’s not really a go to record in my collection (yes, despite selling it I still have a copy of it). I will admit, right up front, that I still get that feeling that despite there being some great stuff here, something feels off about this album. Maybe that’s just because now I know what happened to the band after this, I don’t know…I can’t un-know Sammy Hagar left after this. Hell, bassist Michael Anthony was relegated to basically hired-hand status after this. But listening to this record, I have to say it’s a lot better than I remember it being.

The album’s first three tracks are actually a pretty damn good start. The opening track, “The Seventh Seal,” with the chanting monks opening the song, is actually a pretty decent track. Sammy, for once isn’t singing about chicks. Eddie was sober and thinking about higher powers, apparently. The next track, the more pop oriented love song, “Can’t Stop Loving You,” which Hagar actually wrote from the point of view of his ex-wife… he thought she was still in love with him(?) was a big hit. That song is probably the most enduring one from the album. I listened to this track quite a bit when a family pet passed a few years back and it helped me. And finally, we have the first single, “Don’t Tell Me (What Love Can Do).” That song gives me real Fair Warning vibes.

After that promising start, the album veers off track a little. Eddie and Alex wanted to do a song to honor their Dutch heritage (and their dad) and they entrusted the lyrics of “Amsterdam” to Sammy, who once wrote the line “Only time will tell if we stand the test of time…” Sigh. So they got a song about getting high and looking at hookers in the windows. I seem to remember that really pissed the Van Halen brothers off, but they recorded and released it anyway. Hell, it was later a single. The lyrics are pretty stupid but the guitar work is pretty fierce. All these years later, it’s not terrible. The chorus is just so stupid, “Wham bam, Amsterdam.” Sammy ain’t Shakespeare . “Big Fat Money” is a meet-me-at-the-finish-line barn burner track. It reminds me of “Good Enough” or “Get Up” from 5150. Again, not a bad song, just harder, faster. “Aftershock” is actually a very good rock song that’d also forgotten.

As mentioned there are three instrumentals on the album. “Strung Out” sounds like Eddie trapped inside a piano trying to make enough noise to be rescued. “Baluchitherium” is a full band effort. It sounds like a finished track without vocals. It’s cool guitar but this might have been developed more. It’s my favorite of the instrumentals. “Doing Time” which precedes “Baluchitherium” on the album sounds like a waiter with a tray of silverware falling down some stairs. It’s like when Pink Floyd tried to use household items to record an album. Eventually drummer Alex Van Halen does kick in and it gets more interesting. It is thankfully less than 2 minutes long.

There are a couple of ballads. “Not Enough” is a piano driven track and I’d forgotten all about it. It’s a bit treacly but it’s an okay ballad. “Take Me Back (Deja Vu)” is much better. It starts off with a nice acoustic guitar. Sammy had been pushing for a Zeppelin-style acoustic track since they did “Finish What You Started,” which began as an acoustic number. I really like this track. “Feelin'” about… well, feelings… is a pretty good midtempo thing that eventually explodes into a fabulous guitar solo. Overall I have to say this album is a lot better than I’d remembered.

The original album is what’s on disc 1 of this “Expanded Edition” and disc 2 holds the bonus material. We usually judge these expanded deals on the strength of the bonus material and I have to say this stuff mostly confused me. From a studio perspective they start off with “Crossing Over” which was released originally on the Japanese version of the album. It’s a weird track but Eddie does take them in a different direction quite successfully. But again, I already had this song. The next two “bonus” tracks are “Humans Being” and “Respect The Wind” (the latter credited to Eddie Van Halen & Alex Van Halen) from the Twister soundtrack (1996). “Humans Being” was on Van Halen’s Best Of Volume 1, so it’s been easy to find for a while. That greatest hits set also featured the first, brief reunion of the Van Halen brothers with Roth who contributed “Me Wise Magic” and “Can’t Get This Stuff No More.” Sammy was long gone by that time.

The rest of disc 2 is live stuff from London’s Wembley Stadium on 6/24/1995. I’m always disappointed when a band puts out a bonus disc of live stuff and edits the original concert down to fit on one disc. We get only 8 songs from that show. When I looked up the Balance tour they were doing an average of 21 songs per show. The show at Wembley, that we hear excerpts from, only had 13 tracks played. I couldn’t figure out why they had such a truncated set until I found out that on part of that tour (in Europe only) they opened for Bon Jovi. The shorter set that night was because they were openers, which stuns me. I’d rather have gotten a disc with all 13 tracks from that set or an additional disc (to round it up to 3) with an entire 21-track performance from the tour. That said, I’ll take any live Van Halen I can get. These guys were always so good in concert. I like the live versions of “Seventh Seal” and “Feelin'” we get here. Eddie goes wild on the latter. Then they do a brief run through a few of the hits: “Ain’t Talkin’ Bout Love” to “Guitar Solo” (a short version of “Eruption”) and “You Really Got Me” from their debut album with Roth. Sammy acquits himself well on the early VH tunes. The final three tracks are all keyboard centric: “When Its Love,” a spirited rendition of “Jump” and then they wrap up with a great version of “Right Now.” Great stuff but just not enough of it to move the needle for me on this one.

After Best Of – Vol 1 failed to sustain the Roth reunion, VH soldiered on with Cerone, as mentioned. VHIII came out in March of 1998. Sammy had already moved on, back to his solo stuff with Marching To Mars (great title track) released in May of ’97. They would reunite in 2003-2005 for an ill fated tour behind the next greatest hits package, Best Of Both Worlds, that featured three new songs with Hagar (“Up For Breakfast,” “It’s About Time,” and “Learning To See”) and that was as close to an actual reunion album with Hagar as we ever got. I know Eddie was drinking againon that , very heavily. Luckily he finally got the monkey off his back. The band reunited with Roth again in 2012 but by then the magic was gone.

It’s a damn shame Sammy and the VH brothers couldn’t come to terms and work out their difficulties. Sometimes you just gotta go your own way. With Hagar, they never, for me at least, reached the heights of the Roth Era but they were still a great band, especially live. Sammy and Eddie apparently reunited in one of Sammy’s dreams recently and he wrote “Encore, Thank You, Goodnight” for his late bandmate, so there’s that… if you believe in that sort of thing. Balance probably deserves a re-listen by all VH fans, but there’s just not enough unreleased live stuff (or studio stuff, for that matter) on this to get me interested in buying it… it’s a “streamer” for me. I know Wolfgang Van Halen is busy in Eddie’s old vault, and we may eventually hear some unreleased stuff… fingers crossed!

Cheers!