Even now, you can’t hear a fret-fiddling Van Halen intro without hoping Prince’s “When Doves Cry” will kick in and take over. A cock-rock band that promised to be more fun than they were, their soft-metal isn’t ageing well. The Dave Lee Roth days are flamboyant enough to remain funny: “Beautiful Girls” and “Hot For Teacher” are gratuitous-pneumatic-babes-swamping-MTV classics, but the post-’85 Sammy Hagar years are landlocked. These two discs offer three new tracks, including the single “Up For Breakfast”, which is porridge.
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