The 2012 record, out of print on vinyl for years, comes back through Rhino on October 23 with a clear vinyl edition for independent shops.
A Different Kind Of Truth, the last studio album Van Halen made, is being reissued on October 23.
Rhino will put it out on CD and as a double LP on 180-gram vinyl in a gatefold sleeve. A limited crystal-clear vinyl pressing will be sold only through participating independent retailers and Rhino.com. Chris Bellman cut the lacquers at Bernie Grundman Mastering.
The record has been difficult to find in physical form for some time. Original 2012 vinyl copies now change hands at collector prices, and the album was also pulled from streaming services for close to two years before returning in June 2024.
A Different Kind Of Truth arrived on February 7, 2012 through Interscope, the only Van Halen album that label released, and entered the Billboard 200 at No. 2. It was the band’s first record of new studio material with David Lee Roth since 1984, and their first of any kind since Van Halen III in 1998.
It is also the only Van Halen studio album made without Michael Anthony, who had played bass on every one of their previous records. Eddie Van Halen‘s son Wolfgang took the position, making it his only studio album with the band. He had joined at 15 and played alongside his father from 2006 until 2015.
John Shanks produced it with the band at Eddie‘s own 5150 Studios and at Henson Recording Studios in Hollywood, with sessions running from November 2010 into August 2011 and further work the following January.
Much of the album was not written from scratch. Seven of its thirteen songs were reworked from material the band had left incomplete decades earlier, some of it dating to the 1970s — “She’s The Woman” grew out of a demo from 1976.
Wolfgang Van Halen has described how the record came about.
“It just felt like it was the right time [for Van Halen to release some music]. We had done a tour, and it was, like, ‘Okay, well, the next thing we should do is record something.’ And so it took — I know some of the earlier demos we started recording in 2009, so it took a long time… The fact that that record happened at all, I think, is kind of a miracle. But we pulled it off,” he explained.
He has said the decision to mine old ideas was a way of getting the band back into its earlier working habits.
“Tattoo” was released as the first single in January 2012 and “She’s The Woman” followed in February. They remain the last singles Van Halen issued.
A Different Kind Of Truth Tracklist:
LP One, Side One
- “Tattoo“
- “She’s The Woman“
- “You And Your Blues“
- “China Town“
LP One, Side Two
- “Blood And Fire“
- “Bullethead“
- “As Is“
LP Two, Side One
- “Honeybabysweetiedoll“
- “The Trouble With Never“
- “Outta Space“
LP Two, Side Two
- “Stay Frosty“
- “Big River“
- “Beats Workin’“
The brothers Eddie and Alex Van Halen started the band in Pasadena in 1972 under the name Mammoth, changing it to Van Halen in 1974 once Roth and Anthony were in place. Their 1978 debut and 1984’s 1984 have both been certified diamond by the RIAA, and the band’s sales are put at more than 75 million albums worldwide. They entered the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame in 2007.
Eddie Van Halen died in October 2020 at the age of 65, after several years of cancer treatment, which brought the band to an end. Van Halen had been inactive since finishing their last American tour in 2015.
