Old Elsie has been touring for the last few years with a couple of monster guitarists in Doug Aldrich and Reb Beach. Clearly, he has been struggling to sing halfway decent, especially losing most his much coveted lows. The line-up has finally decided to put out a full length, Whitesnake's first since the horrendous Restless Heart that came out ten years ago. And the buzz created in the hard rock circles and charts worldwide is absolutely justified, Good To Be Bad is a really good album and a stylistic follow-up to the stellar 1987.

This is Doug Aldrich's gig, and Reb Beach freely admits it too. Doug takes all but a couple of solos on this album, has written all the songs and co-produced it too. Though initially hired to play like John Sykes, which Doug did to perfection including the stinging wide vibrato and wild, sexy and blistering pentatonic runs on a black Les Paul. It's a good thing for Whitesnake fans but not necessarily so for fans of Doug from his Lion, Bad Moon Rising,  Burning Rain and the versatile solo days. He sounds a little too much like Sykes here. It also means that the solos fucking rip. Riffs on this album are old school hard rock and at times even a nice throwback to the awesome Moody/Mardsen days of the band when they were a lot bluesier. It seems like they figured out what fans would want from the band at this point, and have come up with exactly that. Guitars are heavy, thick and up front in the mix and the solos are adequately abundant. Coverdale sounds way better in the studio than on the recent live album(s) but as far as lyrics go, he's still one of the worst in rock. Cheesy and cliche-filled as ever.

It takes three superb hard rockers before the first mandatory ballad comes in. All I Want All I Need is not bad at all, though it would've sounded a lot better with Coverdale's old baritone. It is followed by the title song which is absolutely killer and the main guitar riff just oozes sex. Also present in this song is this absolutely amazing riff over which Doug's solo tears you a new one as usual. This is how you do old school hard rock without sounding generic and boring or like a tribute band, folks. All For Love is all about the 70s. Like Phil Lynott's take on the riff from Carry On My Wayward Son because he found the original too boring after that cool first riff.

Summer Rain, the second ballad of the album is good too but man, the lyrics! Some typical pathetic shit again from Coverdale. But the old school blues on Lay Down Your Love that follows it is what I dig about the early Whitesnake and I'm extra glad they've put these on this album. The beginning of the epic solo reminded me a lot of Joe Bonamassa before Doug starts ripping complete with all the tapping nonsense. The old bluesy Whitesnake continues to flow with A Fool In Love and Got What You Need. The earlier is almost like an updated Crying in the Rain as first heard on Saints & Sinners. The album closer Till the End of Time is a moody near-acoustic bluesy ballad that wouldn't have been out of place on the Coverdale-Page album, especially with them doing a Kashmir towards the four minute mark.

Good To Be Bad is one of Whitesnake's best albums, and if it's coming so unexpectedly and late in their career, Doug's mainly got to be thanked.

Label: SPV/Steamhammer
Year of Release: 2008