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List Price: $10.98 | | Label: Warner Bros / Wea
Salesrank: 530185
Released: January 24, 1995 |
| Our Price: $74.99 |
| Used Price: $49.99 |
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| Media: Vinyl |
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Balance Track Listing:
1. Seventh Seal
2. Can't Stop Lovin' You
3. Don't Tell Me (What Love Can Do)
4. Amsterdam
5. Big Fat Money
6. Strung Out [Instrumental]
7. Not Enough
8. Aftershock
9. Doin' Time [Instrumental]
10. Baluchitherium
11. Take Me Back (Deja Vu)
12. Feelin'
Editorial Review:
No numeric or anagrammatic puns in the title of album #11, a sure sign that a new chapter is opening for these monsters of '80s rock. The band's formula has been polished to a blinding gleam here by producer Bruce Fairbairn, and there's a formidable mix of radio cuts (the first single "Don't Tell Me," "Can't Stop Lovin' You"), boneheaded rawk numbers ("Amsterdam," "Big Fat Money") and towering, cinematic epics ("The Seventh Seal," "Feelin'"). --Jeff Bateman
Balance Reviews:
VERY AVG VAN HALEN (with a few highlights) 
2009-09-28 - This is a very avg VH album , The production is fine , the songs are avg , the musicianship is fantastic . SAMMY has never been inventive with his singing technique , this album is when he was at his plainest .
It start off with poundcake part 2 , except its far more serious , lacking a solo n a chorus! , but it never reaches the heights of poundcake .
Cant start loving you is a very pleasent song , easy goin with a nice guitar tone , but its no why cant this be love thats for sure . its passable though.
Dont tell me , is VH s grunge attempt , very ALICE IN CHAINS , great guitar tone from eddie with a chugging , Then HAGAR ruins it with an awful screaming in the chorus , which is very hard to beleive was actually released as a single
AMSTERDAM , i love this song n rate it up with their best , people dont like it because eddie didnt like the lyrics , sure there not mind blowing but gees VHs never were with HAGAR . Once again great guitar , one of my faves , Hagar is quite inventive n actually ads to this song instead of blunting it , great solo to.
BIG FAT MONEY AWFUL !!! awful awful!!!! awful!!!!! terrible , how cld any sane person compare this with panama , HAGAR ruins this gees this has terrible lyrics , Hagar dumbs this down big time , one of there worst .
NOT ENOUGH is pleasent again , well written ballad , bit of a piano driven LOVE WALKS IN.
The rest of the album is alright , i love the instrumental , take me back , cld have been a great song instead Hagar ruined it again, EDDIE must be sick of people ruining his songs , hagar is terrible on this one .
Feelin another great song , hagars choruses are pretty avg through this whole cd. Solo is brilliant though .
So to sum this album up is that its one of there worst , vh being serious , never really suits , not as bad as ou812 or 2 but on par with 3 . The guitar is great through the whole album, the solos are brilliant n the musicianship is what makes this album , hagar ruins it by screaching all the way through it , the songs arent the best either , nothing even near 1984 or 5150 , u wouldnt beleive it was the same band
VH 
2009-09-02 - Not near their best album by far. The worst was that thing with Gary from the band Extreme. What was Eddie thinking when he got this guy for the album? I can't believe they will be back with David Lee Roth for a forthcoming new album. I thought they hated dude. I wish they could all get along and Sammy be lead singer.
C U in Hel*
CrackerJack Steve
Last Hagar CD 
2009-08-05 - I can't understand why this CD is out of print. It is the last Hagar one (before the Gary Cherone debacle) and it is pretty good. It is one of their more mature efforts, but has plenty of hard rocking tunes ("Amsterdam") to appeal to a more seasoned fan base. I absolutely love "Baluchitherium" and would chose it over "Eruption" any day of the week when it comes to Van Halen instrumentals. Overall, "Balance" is a strong effort from the Hagar era of Van Halen. It is comforting to know that they went out on a high note.
Kicks like a soccer mom
2009-07-10 - Averse to the school of sheer sexual shred, this still remains the only Halen I'm havin' (as good as older songs can be on occasion). And it still is only decent enough to warrant rare dust-offs for some deeper songwriting licks in between lifeless rock routines, on a production encroaching geezerdom that only really seems to accentuate properly during slower ballads and instrumental passages.
A Masterpiece 
2008-12-22 - With "Balance," Van Halen Mark 2 demonstrated real refinement along with their superb singing and playing skills. Songs like "Amersterdam" and "Big Fat Money" recalled the hyperdrive of Van Halen or of Sammy Hagar's solo hits like "I Don't Need Love" and "I've Done Everything for You." Every element of hard-rock excellence -- the best guitarist in rock history, a fabulous singer, signature drumming recognizable on first listen through a dorm neighbor's door as that of Alex Van Halen, and vocal harmonies otherwise unknown to hard rock -- is on display here.
Yet, as Eddie Van Halen said at the time, he had subordinated flash to the songs. "I Can't Stop Lovin' You," which we had the dj play at my wedding reception, succeeds admirably in laying out the feeling of really being in love. "Take Me Back (Deja Vu)" conveys the sentiment of seeing a long-lost amour and feeling that old feeling stir; besides, it features the most memorable guitar line on "Balance," and perhaps the finest craftsmanship of any Van Halen tune.
In "The Seventh Seal," Sammy Hagar's lyrics pick up on a Christian theme he touched on on OU812, that of seeking truth and beginning to find it; as on that earlier album, Hagar demonstrates some openness toward other cultures' faiths, but his chief references are Christian. (The Seventh Seal is mentioned in the Book of Revelation, and the moment when it is "cracked," as he puts it here, isn't one we want to witness. Spine-tingling!)
The heaviness of "Don't Tell Me What Love Can Do" may reflect the musical ambiance of the mid-'90s. Van Halen was the most popular American band of '78-'91, but that didn't mean that they weren't influenced by others. For my money, the results are positive.
Although I saw VH from the front row of the Frank Erwin Center in Austin in 1982 (Eddie gawked at me mid-"Eruption" and I caught a Michael Anthony pick) and from the tenth row in 1983, I didn't hear this entire disc front to back 'til last year. I regret that I missed it, because it is really something.
I see that "Foghat: Live" merits an average rating of 4.5. How ridiculous that this truly classic specimen of hard rock gets only a 4.0, then. Reviewers should remember that they aren't comparing Van Halen CDs to earlier Van Halen CDs, but are comparing them to other music in general. The boys deserve a flat 5.
