Strummin' With the Devil

Reviewed by:
Mike Errico

There's one unmistakable element of David Lee Roth–era Van Halen: As hard as they rocked, they always seemed to maintain a sense of humor while drawing inspiration from left-field musical genres the Scorpions or Metallica never would have touched. A musical eon later, Diamond Dave continues to wrestle with his ADD, emerging as the spokesman for this bluegrass tribute to the arena-crushing monster he led to glory through most of the '70s and '80s. Unplugged and reimagined on fiddles and mandolins, Strummin' With the Devil is a hit-or-miss affair that might appeal to a VH fan jonesing for new versions of the classics, or to a bluegrass fan jonesing for songs about something other than buckets and children dying of frostbite. If you don't fall into either of those camps, you'll be justifiably confused: Can a singer be on his own tribute record? If so, why would he only sing on two songs? Who bothered to learn "Eruption" on the damn mandolin? And how's Gary Cherone doing? He's not returning calls.

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Read our exclusive David Lee Roth interview on Blender.com

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