Van Halen-s/t, 1978

One of the things that is commonly attached to this album is the notion that it was important in saving rock music. That might very well be true to some extent. By the start of 1978, disco, new wave and punk were all cutting into a piece of the pie that had largely been ruled by hard rock between say 1970-1975. Also some of the big bands of the earlier part of the decade were changing as Deep Purple were gone and Black Sabbath and Led Zeppelin were not the bands that they once were. Acts like Rush, Ted Nugent, Judas Priest and AC/DC were still going strong, but there was room for more. The opening track here is of course "Running with the devil" and it's a good example of Roth-era Van Halen. You have the easy little sound of Michael Anthony's bass and an even guitar coming in, but then you have some good Diamond Dave howls, some big Alex Van Halen drum beats and a ripping solo from Eddie. Van Halen in their prime were largely mixes of the simple and the extreme and that was part of their charm and appeal for me. Then the album rips into the guitar instrumental "Eruption" and only two tracks in and Eddie is already establishing himself as the next real guitar hero. Their cover of "You really got me" sees the band sounding way more experienced than a band doing their debut should sound. Eddie always blew off the main riff for "'Ain't talkin' 'bout love" as being kind of a joke, but this is a great song for all involved. "I'm the one" closes side one and it's a good track for showing the band's ability to bring a real groove to their music. Flip it over to side two and "Jamie's cryin" starts it off and we a good earful of how effective this band can make their vocals sound. "Atomic Punk" is a wild song with an edgy riff and a good amount of energy. "Feel your love night" is at times a little forgotten, but again it has some of what became the trademark vocals that this band was once so good at doing. "Little Dreamer" although decent might be the only track here that's not quite as interesting to me as the rest of the album. "Ice cream man" is all about Diamond Dave and boy does he carry and sell it. The album finishes up with a big ripper called on "On fire" with all the members laying like crazy. What a debut for these guys as they threw it all out there and it wasn't over yet as they were going to be at the top of their game for another six years. It has certainly not lost anything over the years as it still shines today as a fine example of guitar based hard rock. I didn't hear this until like 1984 and was stunned then. I can only imagine that people who first heard in 1978 had to have someone pick their jaws up off of the floor.