listening Post: Van Halen - For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge

When I was about 15 or 16 my best friend in the summer vacation town of Bar Harbor was a guy named Pete. I met him while we were both prep cooks at the town's greasy spoon. Pete was a metal guy all the way. Used to listen to Pantera before anyone knew who they were. He took me to see Ozzy at the Blizzard of Oz tour stop at the Bangor State Fair, (Randy Rhodes was 5 feet from me and a little band named Def Leppard was the opener). Pete also had a pair of pants tailor painted with white stripes to emulate Eddie Van Halen's guitar. While I was immersing myself in Queen, Pete was learning to shred. I never even gave the Pasadena boys a chance.
Let's remedy that now, shall we?



Van Halen - For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge - 1991 (Buy it)

For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge? Get it? The album says "Fuck", Bevis. He he he....yikes. These are grown men.
They sing about Poundcake. Which, I think, is more about pounding someone's cake than Sara Lee. Or maybe it's Sara Lee's Poundcake. Or maybe they want to have sex with dough....I don't know. I don't care.
This sucks.
It's lifeless. It's boring. It sounds like 3rd rate Judas Priest at times. Which is like a notch below Ratt.
There is no there here.
This is one really obnoxious record that sounds, much of the time, like Fingers Bertinelli didn't even listen to the backing section and just asked what key the songs were in and sent some leads over.
The melodies are empty headed and lunk sounding.
The single was good, the rest, not so much.
Van Halen, more and more, are really all about the alchemy of VH, VH, Anthony and Roth. After that, they are pretty much useless.

Grade D
A Side: Right Now
BlindSide: Nothing. I really didn't like this at all.
Downside: The weird talky prog of Pleasure Dome