Diamond Dave

Considering the oeuvre, to call this the best pop album of David Lee Roth's star-crossed solo career might risk damning it with faint praise. In its best moments it picks up where his fluke-hit 1985 solo EP, Crazy From the Heat, left off, undercutting his obnoxious Van Halen strut with self-deprecating humor while framing him as R&B-savvy popmeister/entertainer. But that was then; this is now, and even if Roth's cover-heavy shtick here (Steve Miller's "Shoo Bop," the Doors' "Soul Kitchen," "If 6 Was 9" by Hendrix, "Made Up My Mind" Savoy Brown, the Beatles' "Tomorrow Never Knows") contains a couple surprising gems (Rodger Collins' "She's Looking Good" and the Hombres' "Let It All Hang Out") and a savvy, lugubrious contemporary production sense, it all seems--like the enigmatic frontman himself--marooned outside boundaries of time and space. If it's an album that scrupulously avoids the blatant VH-invoking hard rock of his previous DLR Band in favor of the hook-and-groove concerns of "Stay While the Night is Young" and "You Got the Blues, Not Me," and snarling sass of "Thug Pop," the lounge-ready redux of his previous band's "Ice Cream Man" can't help but recall the Vegas crash-and-burn phase of Roth's career--and his frustrating inability to capitalize on even the trends he admittedly inspired. --Jerry McCulley