Snakebites

A Tribute To Whitesnake (Deadline/Cleopatra)
by Martin Popoff

Here’s one of these endless variants whose heart is in the right place, but, er, heart’s grown cold. No techno remixes, no third-rate death metal, but no real pep either, Snakebites gathering guys with thick metal resumes to romp through Coverdale’s classics. Trouble is, these songs were so largely produced, played, and sung in the first place, there’s little to improve upon. How can you top the original leadweight sledge of “Still Of The Night”? You can’t, unless a creative re-engineering is an improvement, an idea nobody here dares address. So what you get are stars like Bernie Shaw, Doogie White, Nicky Moore, Steve Overland (OK, not exactly stars, but in our geeky metal microcosm, these guys mean something), plus Mick Moody, Pete Jupp, Rick Wills, and Neil Murray, giving us these polished pop metal munchers with a 6.5% gesture toward personal stamp. Big deal. One positive though: These assembled song choices would likely, just by a hair, eclipse any original Whitesnake album as the best of the catalogue (and if not, it would be because of the whore-mongering ballads “Is This Love” and “The Deeper The Love”).
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