Year Of The Snake!
When DC sings ‘these are the best years of my life’ I can believe the bloke wholeheartedly. He still looks great (but strangely different? Bit of a nose job David?) , sounds even better (thanks to a now clean healthy living regime) and has still got the chops and the writing nailed down.
2008 will be Whitesnake's 30th anniversary, THIRTIETH!!! And no doubt promises to be quite a year for all concerned. ‘Good To Be Bad’ is their first studio album in a decade. I understand Coverdale feels that it is the first ‘real’ Whitesnake album in over 20 years, which makes this the follow up to the magnificent 1987, Whitesnake are a band I hold very close to my heart. It was my first ever gig, Deeside Leisure Centre, Dec ’82, I wagged the afternoon off school just to be there
One thing the canny Mr.Coverdale has always done, is to surround himself with great musicians. I’m glad to say that this is the case here. The spine of the band is almost complete, with just a little bit of osteopathic tweaking in the in the drum stool area. 83percent! of the band is present from the recent ‘Live...In The Shadow Of The Blues’ tour and cd. Out goes the Grandfather of drumming, Tommy Aldridge. In to the revolving seat comes Chris Frazier (Steve Vai). Thankfully that’s all that has changed. Winger slinger Reb Beach is still in attendance, as is Doug Aldrich who has fitted in very nicely as a writing partner to DC. Wrapping up the band is Timothy Drury and Uriah Duffy. In Coverdale land this is about as stable it gets
To the album, Whitesnake have produced their best album in eons. This could be an easy statement to make, based on the fact that hardly a studio album has come from the Whitesnake stable in the best part of a decade, even longer if you class the last time Whitesnake made a decent album, in Slip Of The Tongue. Is it a more modern sounding Whitesnake for the Millenium? Or the blues, soul and good time rock we are used to! One thing that doesn’t change thankfully is DC’s great tone. No longer a spring chicken but still able to pull out the stops, and more.
Good To Be Bad starts off with the medium paced ‘Best Years’, not the best opener for a Whitesnake album I’ve heard but is none the less ok. The album changes gears and picks up the pace. On ‘Can You Hear The Wind Blow’ Coverdale’s opening salvo of ‘Over the mountains across the sea...’ is the typical goose bumping sound which made Whitesnake great all those years ago, as only DC can sound this good. The snakes rattle continues with ’Call On Me’ the solos more wilddly than bluesy and would fit nicely on ‘Slip Of The Tongue’.
Ballads are aplenty on the cd, the first of which, ‘All I Want, All I Need’ taken from the John Sykes school of 1987 guitar sounding balladry. ‘Summer Rain’ is a laid back affair and I can help noticing that the voice is croaky, but only on the ballads! The title track, ‘Good To Be Back’, delivers a big punch, and reminds me so much of ‘Hot Stuff’ from all those years ago, albeit newer sounding and heavier. We’re taken back to the mid Seventies with Coverdale doing a Led Zeppelin on ‘Lay Down Your Love’ also reminiscent of ‘Still of The Night’. ‘AFool In Love’ make no apologies for being stolen from ‘Cryin’ In The Rain’. David Coverdale wants to show Blighty hes still got his roots placed firmly in the UK, with a quick ‘Ay-up!’ at the beginning of ‘Got What You Need’ a fast paced rocker of ACDC proportions. This cd (I say THIS, as this album is available in a few formats), ends with ‘’Til The End Of Time’, the final ballad and Southern sounding song and my fave ballad of the three on offer.
Perhaps that’s why I like the album so much, because it’s so reminiscent of so many of DC’s back catalogue. He (DC) obviously made Doug Aldrich listen to every song committed to vinyl before heading off to the studio.
It could of been so easy for Mr Coverdale to just sit back and be lazy, delivering an album of mediocrity like so many of the classic bands churning out sub standard material for the fans willing to lap up any old crap. Thankfully he’s resisted the temptation, left off the four taster tacks from the ‘Live..In The Shadow Of The Blues’, and delivered an album worthy of the Whitesnake legacy. Bravo, DC, see you in July!
‘Good To Be Bad?’ It should read ‘Good To Be Back!’