The long-forgotten band Whitesnake has recently been
resurrected, and they’re ready to rock like it’s 1989. The band’s latest album,
Good to Be Bad, carries the same powerhouse guitar riffs and banal lyrics that
brought hair-rock to the top of the charts two decades ago.

In their 30-year career, Whitesnake has shed an
unprecedented amount of band members — 29 to be exact — leaving lead singer
David Coverdale as the band’s sole survivor.

Coverdale’s latest roundup of all-new band members offers
the same signature sound and long locks, but this time without the teased perm.

Perhaps the fresh meat has served as a fountain of youth for
the band, as each hard-rock track radiates with a fist-pumping energy that is
reminiscent of their stadium-stomping glory days. The opening track, “The
Best Years of Our Lives,” presents the gritty combination of a fast tempo
snare against the thick set of layered electronic guitars that bridge into a
smooth melodic chorus. The next two songs follow a similar pattern, all
containing a flashy guitar solo two-thirds of the way through the song that
showcase guitarists Doug Aldrich and Reb Beach’s complementary guitar skills
while giving Coverdale’s howling a brief rest.

Whitesnake fearlessly revives the infamous power ballad in
“All I Want All I Need.” Typical of many power ballads, the song is
grotesquely abundant in clich?d lyrics such as “No matter what I have to
do/ Through thick and thin/ I’ll be your friend/ By your side till the very
end.” The previously dominating guitars are reduced to a mere murmur as
Cloverdale’s vocals reign supreme over the chiming synthetics of the keyboard
while he sings about his dependence on women. Covering up their sympathetic
tracks, the band follows with “Good to Be Bad” in which they shift
from sissies to self-proclaimed badasses.

Overall, Good to Be Bad is an incarnation of what any fan
would want from a Whitesnake CD, as it’s filled with intense, head-bobbing
beats with catchy choruses. The bluesy “A Fool in Love” and
drum-frenzied “Got What You Need” are examples of well-crafted hard
rock songs but lack the modernization and progression necessary for the band to
prevail in the 21st century. Nowadays, alternative rock has taken the place of
the uncomplicated ’80s hard rock, and the soulful acoustic songs are the new
the power ballad.

The band’s ability to stick to what they know has caused
them to create replicas of the songs we left behind in the 1980s. Whitesnake’s
Good to Be Bad proves the band still has the power-fueled fire that helped them
rock out countless stadiums, but this time around they are more likely to be
rocking out at your local county fair. ?