Van Halen: Balance (2LP, expanded edition, orange vinyl, etched) [RHINO]

Why you'll love it

This expanded 2LP set is remastered, pressed in the USA on orange vinyl and finished with an etched side D. Balance went to No. 1 on the Billboard 200 and triple platinum, and "The Seventh Seal" earned a Grammy nomination for Best Hard Rock Performance.

This edition

• 2LP set
• Expanded edition
• Orange vinyl
• Etched side D
• Remastered
• Pressed in the USA

About the album

Balance has a Vancouver accent if you listen closely. Most of it was cut at Eddie Van Halen's 5150 Studios in Studio City, but Sammy Hagar sang five of his lead vocals in Vancouver, where producer Bruce Fairbairn lived, and Mike Fraser mixed it. It was the band's fourth and last studio album with Hagar, and the last with Michael Anthony on bass all the way through.

Eddie wrote the opening "The Seventh Seal" in a sudden burst, three songs in half an hour by his account, and its mystical tone sets a more serious mood than usual. Hagar's "Can't Stop Lovin' You" is the big radio singalong, "Don't Tell Me (What Love Can Do)" hits hard, and "Not Enough" is a piano-led ballad. Three instrumentals, "Strung Out," "Doin' Time" and "Baluchitherium," give the Van Halen brothers room to stretch, with Eddie's guitar and keyboards woven right through.

The 2025 expanded edition gives the closing chapter of the Hagar years a proper vinyl showcase. Baluchitherium, for the record, is an extinct giant rhinoceros; on Rhino, it has finally found its natural habitat.

Also at Kops: more Van Halen on vinyl · browse Rock

Tracklist

Listen

On Warner Records / Rhino (cat# RCV1 727470), a reissue of the 1995 album.