Van Halen
Women And Children First

THE REVIEW

'Women And Children First' is the album recorded and released in 1980 by the formidable band Van Halen, fresh off the success of their first two albums. The recordings on the album's tracks evoke pleasure just by hearing the notes, maintaining a level of significant greatness like the previous album 'Van Halen II,' being only slightly inferior to masterpieces like 'Van Halen I,' 'Fair Warning,' and '1984.' Despite being largely of American origin and thus with broad auditory vistas, and especially with great commercial horizons, it must be said that this Hardrock, essentially performed in the "old-fashioned way" and without pretenses doesn't step out of line for even a second.

Just listen to And the Cradle Will Rock... and the cradle will rock. It opens this majestic rock-tinted track, whose solo is the offspring of the King of tapping. Everybody Wants Some is a song whose appreciation will come late but fiercely from listeners, and proof of this lies in the stellar Hendrixian interlude and the stunning Ian Gillan-style vocalizations sung by our legendary Diamond Dave. A needlessly lengthy introduction leads us to Fools, which fortunately literally explodes, like in a second Eruption, then breaks into the ingenious rather rhythmic riff, accompanied by the usual unmistakable Van Halen-like choruses in the sung parts.

Romeo Delight doesn't feature a very well-conceived melodic line, in which the voice and the guitar don't interact properly, and indeed the track turns out not to be one of the best on the album. Tora! Tora! is the usual amusing little mess, but it serves as an intro to Loss Of Control: an incredible and fast piece of pure guitar energy, where Dave Lee Roth lets his vocal cords run wild. Overwhelming. Take Your Whiskey Home is bluesy, as long as the acoustic guitar dominates the intro. But then when Eddie's electric guitar takes the reins through its strings, it's pure Hardblues. Could This Be Magic? is an acoustic ballad and a true enjoyment, with the slide guitar giving it that typically American twist. The finale is entrusted to In A Simple Rhyme, where the arpeggio passage in the interludes and the beautiful choral part in the choruses particularly stand out.

Van Halen is synonymous with pure fun, a desire to live, to play, to love, or simply to pick up a woman you met while drunk at the bar. Van Halen is the celebration of "good times" and of that turbulent beautiful season that is youth: values and disvalues of which this beautiful album is the embodiment.