Whitesnake's Restless Heart: Nowhere near as bad as some claim

The David Coverdale-approved remix of Whitesnake's Restless Heart is improved and a pleasant surprise

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Whitesnake: Restless Heart cover art
(Image: © PLG)

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OK, in Whitesnake terms this is a long way from being a classic. But listening to the new mix of the original album, this is better than history has painted it. David Coverdale wanted Restless Heart to be a solo album, however for commercial reasons it came out in 1997 under the Whitesnake name. 

Now he’s had it remixed to fit his initial purpose, and this has improved songs like All In The Name Of Love, Don’t Fade Away and Too Many Tears, accentuating the soul, blues influences. And both Restless Heart plus You’re So Fine capture something of the spirit the band had prior to their early pre-superstar days. 

Naturally, there’s a raft of extras on a super-deluxe 4-CD/ DVD edition. These include studio out-takes and demos, which sound closer to Coverdale’s ambitions than the way the album eventually sounded. 

The DVD has a feature on the making of Restless Heart, plus the videos shot at the time. Fans can also opt for the double CD, double LP or single CD versions. 

Restless Heart is still relatively minor in the Whitesnake world – but it does still come as a pleasant surprise.

Malcolm Dome
Malcolm Dome

Malcolm Dome had an illustrious and celebrated career which stretched back to working for Record Mirror magazine in the late 70s and Metal Fury in the early 80s before joining Kerrang! at its launch in 1981. His first book, Encyclopedia Metallica, published in 1981, may have been the inspiration for the name of a certain band formed that same year. Dome is also credited with inventing the term "thrash metal" while writing about the Anthrax song Metal Thrashing Mad in 1984. With the launch of Classic Rock magazine in 1998 he became involved with that title, sister magazine Metal Hammer, and was a contributor to Prog magazine since its inception in 2009. He died in 2021.