Regarding this time period, in 1996 Eddie Van Halen told Guitar World: "There had been a variety of conflicts brewing between manager Ray Danniels, Sammy, and the band since I quit drinking on October 2, 1994...

"[10] Critic Howard Cohen wrote that, in contrast to the flashy minimalist sound of Van Halen's earliest records, Balance features "grand production: big drums, ambient keyboard textures and other sonic frills.

Complete with chanting monks and dangling metal bells, the song unveiled a vast, open, U2-like guitar wall that propelled through the darkest terrain the band ever tackled.

[15] One reviewer noted the song's "decidedly Zeppish salvo of psuedo-mysticism" and described the Gyoto monks as a sample,[16] while Vulture's Chuck Klosterman compares it a "mid-period Yes album".

[10] "Strung Out", an avant-gade experiment[23] described by Guitar World as a "strange piano piece", was reportedly recorded by Eddie in the early 1980s, having rented pianist Marvin Hamlisch's beach house for a summer vacation.

[14] Klosterman compares it to the material on side two of Pearl Jam's Vitalogy (1994),[17] while music critic Johnny Cigarettes describes "Strung Out" and "Doin' Time", respectively, as "roughly approximating a carpenter next door and a toddler banging pots and pans.

[17] The original title of the album was The Seventh Seal, for which photographer Glen Wexler created some concepts, including one with an androgynous four-year-old boy.

Eventually they picked Balance, which Alex explained to Wexler was about the turmoil and changes surrounding Van Halen, including the recent death of long-time manager Ed Leffler.

Warner Bros. VP of merchandising and advertising Jim Wagner said that early 1995 would be the right time to release a new Van Halen album, as "It seems like we've always had success with big acts right after the first of the year".

The opening-week tally for Van Halen's Balance was 21% higher than that of For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge, the band's previous studio album, which topped the chart with 243,000 units in the summer of 1991.

"[33] Evans noted that Eddie dominates the album with majestic riffs, but further praised the other musicians, including highlighting Alex's "thunder-bucket snare" as the group's "secret weapon", and approving of Hagar's role as "a sort of Everyman as a rock star, a true vox populi.

"[33] The San Francisco Examiner critic Joe Selvin wrote that Fairbairn's production had not changed Van Halen's sound and comments that, although subtleties are rare in the band's work, touches of keyboards and acoustic guitar are present in the back of the mix.

"[16] In Britain, NME reviewer Johnny Cigarettes dismissed the group's more serious direction, wishing for a return to the "over-exuberant, good-time show metal about the simple pleasures in life" that had typified the band's tenure with David Lee Roth.

[10] He wrote that despite the promising lyrics for "Amsterdam" and "Big Fat Money", the music resembled a "mess of blues, pseudo-epic folk, and Sammy Hagar's bland gravel-u-like vocal blusterings", adding that the "wanktackularly pretentious" instrumentals further ruined the album.

[10] Andrew Mueller of Melody Maker similarly bemoaned how the band had become "a flimsy pretext for the widdly-widdlying of Eddie van Halen and the ridiculous grunting of sweaty hod-carrier Sammy Hagar", dismissing the later for being "caught halfway between Muttley from The Macc Lads and The Neph's Carl McCoy.

"[35] Reviewing the album for Select, Clark Collis wrote that Van Halen had become humourless since Lee Roth's departure, with Balance doing "little to remedy" this.

"[34] Deborah Frost of Entertainment Weekly opined that the songs "sound as clumsily grafted together as the computer-manipulated Siamese-twin cover art", adding that although Eddie sporadically "whips off the odd pantheon-worthy move", his bandmates "might as well be on vacation.

"[32] Centre Daily Times critic Howard Cohen believed the album lacked memorable melodies, with a wall of sound production that "threatens to obscure Van Halen's playing"; but called it a "step up" from its "uninspired and juvenile" predecessor, For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge.

[11] Retrospectively, AllMusic reviewer Stephen Thomas Erlewine writes that Balance "tries to open up the Van Hagar formula somewhat", with Eddie placing stronger emphasis on subtle ballads and heavy rockers, but believes his attempts are "weighed down by the most predictable rhythm section in all of rock & roll, which gives each number the same unvarying deadlocked pulse, completely obliterating Eddie's increased musical sensitivity.

"[19] In The Rolling Stone Album Guide (2004), Balance is dismissed as "a disgrace, from the pseudo-religious 'The Seventh Seal' (featuring, for real, the monks of Gyuto Tantric University in Tibet) to Hagar's ode to smoking 'Panama red' in 'Amsterdam'.

"[15] Consequence writer Steven Ovadia considers it "a shame" that Balance was Hagar's last album with Van Halen, because it "hints at a possible musical shift that might have resulted in a different direction for the band".

[36] Balance is ranked at number 477 in Martin Popoff's book The Top 500 Heavy Metal Albums of All Time (2010), compiled from the results of a large poll.

[36] Popoff himself believed the band were "running on fumes" by the recording of the album, despite the first-rate production of Fairbairn and Eddie and Alex "shining brightly with their respective personal stamps".