This irritating set doesn't make it clear on its exterior packaging how similar it is to the 1999 Cleopatra release
Hot for Remixes: Tribute to Van Halen. In fact, the two comps share quite a few tracks, and what new material is here gives off a similarly bewildering stench. Honestly, who wants to hear
Quiet Riot's
Kevin Dubrow laboring through "Dance the Night Away" as
Nitzer Ebb's synthesizers twitter and stomp in the background? It sounds like a stereo war between the goths and the gearheads. There's more of the same throughout this tribute. There's just no connection between the faded-'80s metallers and their industrial and electronic pairings. Yes, there was an occasional keyboard solo in
Van Halen. No, that does not require the band's canon to be twisted into watered down
Rob Zombie industro-jams. Though it has its own problems, at least the 2000 Progressive Arts release
Tribute to Van Halen: Runnin' With the Devil stuck with hard rock and metal. ~ Johnny Loftus