Van Halen - Fair Warning

Titles

1.    Mean Street

2.    Dirty Movies

3.    Sinner’s Swing!

4.    Hear About It Later

5.    Unchained

6.    Push Comes To Shove

7.    So This Is Love?

8.    Sunday Afternoon In The Park

9.    One Foot Out The Door

The song titles on Van Halen's aptly named album "Fair Warning" don't lie: tracks like "Unchained," "Mean Street," "Push Comes To Shove," and "One Foot Out The Door" aptly capture the mood the band conveys on their double-platinum 1981 album—the meanest, darkest, and wildest album of the group's storied career. Van Halen and producer Ted Templeman crafted this sound in less than two weeks. The band further distanced themselves from the live-in-the-studio approach of their earlier albums and successfully utilized overdubs. The result: a dense, layered structure that emphasizes the songs' powerful tone and sounds more alive than ever on this MoFi reference edition—just like the iconic album cover, based on William Kurelek's chilling painting "The Maze." The sunny, airy design of Van Halen's previous album covers gives way here to something ominous and tormented, which is also reflected in the music. The band members are depicted not in glamorous poses, but in serious black-and-white portraits. Hard, aggressive, relentless: "Fair Warning" comes across as a series of punches to the stomach and convinces with matching lyrics.

While not a concept album, this compact album revolves around themes of harsh street life and survival amid bleak prospects. Singer David Lee Roth reportedly wrote many of the early lyrics after a trip to Haiti, where he witnessed extreme poverty firsthand. The characters and situations in “Fair Warning” reflect desperation and danger. “Fair Warning” is certainly not a carefree California beach party. Although guitarist Eddie Van Halen was angry and frustrated during the recording, he used the powerful arrangements as a playground for his seemingly limitless talent. Backed by a top-notch rhythm section and a fiery Roth, he plays with an almost incomprehensible combination of punk intensity, technical finesse, lyrical fluidity, and indomitable emotion. The virtuoso clashed increasingly with Templeman during the recording, as he sought more freedom in the studio than he was given.

While "Fair Warning" sold less than previous Van Halen albums, for many fans it remains the record that best embodies the band's core strengths – Roth's manic energy and tongue-twisting humor, Alex Van Halen's rhythmic thunder, and Michael Anthony's crisp bass lines. Released at a time when the new wave movement was just emerging, it served as a warning shot from a band determined to stay ahead of the curve and prove that no one could match them. More than four decades later, "Fair Warning" still sounds the alarm.

For Mobile Fidelity's numbered Hybrid SACD, presented in mini-LP packaging, the original tapes were meticulously remastered at MoFi Studio in California. The result: a stunningly realistic and immersive sound with unparalleled clarity, dynamics, and attention to detail. The MoFi Hybrid SACD of "Fair Warning" delivers more rock feel than ever before—turn up the volume!