Sammy Hagar remains one of my favourite songwriters and vocalists, but he is really beginning to test my patience with his solo releases.
The Jimmy Buffet of rock has followed up a dreadful duets album, which itself was preceded by an atrocious bits-and-pieces release Cosmic Universal Fashion, with a fully acoustic ‘best of’ featuring some solo tunes and some reworked Van Hagar cuts.
As was the case with the last two albums, I’m again not sure who this is aimed at. Die-hards only I would suggest, as the production and performance within seems pretty rushed.
Some of the tracks translate to acoustic very well and have a semblance of quality to them – such as Finish What Ya Started and Eagles Fly.
Other tracks just grate on my ears – Red Voodoo, One Sip; and Sailin’ and Halfway To Memphis are just too hokey in this setting and Van Halen’s Dreams just sounds horrible.
I have nothing but praise for Sammy in Van Halen, Chickenfoot and his earlier solo material. But post 2000 his efforts have been very hit and miss.
This is obviously a quickly assembled, quickly produced fill-in release, but it marks another miss for the Red (used to be a…) Rocker.
