This is a test.  Here at Fuzztone, our policy is to review every album that arrives in our mailbox, inbox or is thrown at us from a moving vehicle with as little prejudice as possible. Open mind, open ears and all of that.  But for every rule, there has to be a test. That test is the Deluxe Edition of Whitesnake’s Slip of the Tongue.

First off, let’s just point out that there’s no real way to “win” with a review of this album. A panning of it will make us seem like clichéd indie rock nerd, and a praising of the album will make us look completely irrelevant. But in the face of this lose-lose situation, Fuzztone still moves forward, like a kamikaze pilot facing the inevitability of the crash to come.

Slip of the Tongue is the album after Whitesnake’s American breakthrough.  The album still features lead singer David Coverdale doing his best Robert Plant impression but this time, guitarist Steve Vai is firmly entrenched on the guitar frontlines.  The result- Vai’s guitar shredding colliding with Coverdale’s big scream- is less like the overt Zepplinisms that made Whitesnake famous and more like Van Halen, or should I say Van Hagar.

The album reeks of pomposity and overproduced 80’s schlock, which is sad because the musicianship isn’t really that bad. On the few songs where Vai holds back, the groove is solid and Whitesnake’s blues rock background shines through.

Unfortunately those glimmers of the bands past are few and far between.  The band instead relies upon overblown synths, double-bass drumming and ham-fisted sexuality (not to mention the obligatory power ballad “The Deeper the Love”) to fill out the album. The result of all of these ingredients is nothing short of the musical equivalent of a dead animal on the side of the road’s swollen stomach in the summer sun- bloated and ready to pop.

If anything, Slip of the Tongue represents major label music in 1989- overproduced, overplayed and overdone. As a time capsule, the album works. Unfortunately we can’t bury the album for a hundred years.

Whitesnake on the web