Life after Deep Purple was a tad confusing for David Coverdale. He found himself stranded in Germany without a real direction, so he put a band together and recorded a solo album titled White Snake. The name of the album, as it turned out, was very prophetic, the music on the album, however, is boring and very much dated. Coverdale does a great job on the vocals but other than “Hole in the Sky” and “Goldies Place” this one never really gets going in a strong direction.

Coverdale’s second attempt at a solo album is better as there are several songs worthy of hearing again and again, including “Northwinds,” Give Me Kindness” and the song about Deep Purple breaking up titled “Breakdown.” The two bonus tracks, “Shame On the Devil” and “Sweet Mistreater” are both great songs and one wonders how they were left off the original album.

At the end of the day, Coverdale began sowing the seeds with Northwinds for what would become Whitesnake but at the very best, these efforts are only fair. True fanatics and completists should pick them up but the masses, as well as most Whitesnake fans, will likely leave them alone.