The Company of Snakes Burst The Bubble
By
Vinnie Apicella,
Contributor
Thursday, September 26, 2002 @ 2:16 PM
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Having first snuck up on an unsuspecting public with a daring two-disc live return entitled Here They Go Again a couple years prior, The Company Of Snakes, the echoes of the past beckoning once more, team for a new studio disc that's as much guts as it is glory. Let's face it if you're gonna bother doing it, do it right, and considering 3/5's of COS -- Moody, Marsden, and Murray -- were the core of the original and often highest regarded version of Whitesnake, who better to resurrect a decades old favorite that faded into distant obscurity and outrage (to some?) due to Coverdale's starry-eyed persistence? Sorry Dave, no one could rightly argue the strength of "Slide It In" or when the stars aligned on the self-titled but face it, you bent.
So the classic "Whitesnake" revisited here and make no mistake, they offer no apologies and sugar coat nothing, if you were a fan of late seventies/early eighties classics like "Snakebite," "Trouble," or "Lovehunter," it's time to relive it all over again… or just thank Saxon. And back by popular demand, The Company Of Snakes! They were received with such a clamor following their live set, they decided to pick up where they left off -- that would recall 1982 in the wake of their last Saints & Sinners record together and after a number of lesser profile appearances and varied studio work they came up with the brilliant idea that maybe Coverdale's full of shit after all?
However you slice it, it's vintage Whitesnake with a Paul Rodgers Scandinavian sound-alike at the mic and the combined effects are pure rock gold… and a little o' the Delta blues and gator-country boogie and whiskey running mountain music when the moon shines brightly in the hot summer sky. And for all their "classic" recourse, I can already see Mr. C self-satisfactorily smirking were he ever to get wind of "What Love Can Do," which is the none too distant nephew of "Is This Love."
Overall the record's alright… seems to be missing one keyboard playing Don… apparently disappeared into thin Airey, though he figured into the equation back in the "spirit" lifting days. It's funny, the more I listen to this record I'm forced to think of how snake bit Thunder must've felt… pun intended. Some heavy rocking and reeling going on inspired by that classic era harmony and groove and half beat heavy pettin' with no reheated leftovers!
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