Van Halen Unveil Album Art In Times Square

The noise behind the upcoming David Lee Roth-driven Van Halen reunion album due for release on Feb. 7 is becoming impossible to ignore and for the long-suffering VH fanbase, that’s a very good thing. After making the rounds online unofficially, what we presumed was the cover art but is reportedly instead a graphic "based" on the album cover was officially unveiled on a giant LED billboard in Times Square during the annual New Year’s Eve celebration.

Any fans of real rock music who might have been watching the NYE television performances by artists such as Pitbull and Justin Bieber caught a glimpse of the VH artwork, which made for a pretty awesome backdrop and probably caused at least a few rowdy Halen fans to do an extra celebratory shot or three.

The photo illustration above depicts a train from the New York Central System, which during the 1800s was one of the largest railroads in U.S. history. An estimated more than one billion people saw the Van Halen billboard on TV, according to the Hollywood Reporter who did the dirty work on the math -- and that number doesn’t include the million-plus who were celebrating the festivities live in Manhattan.

The new Van Halen album will be their first with Roth since '1984.' Current chatter suggests that the first video and single from the forthcoming effort will drop on Jan. 10, the same day that tickets for Van Halen’s world tour go on sale. Which means that we should be hearing something about what cities the group might be planning to play, any day now.

Van Halen will be primed and ready for the trek – they’ve been holed up for the past two months rehearsing in secrecy at The Roxy.