Featuring former Whitesnake members Bernie Marsden, Micky Moody and Neil Murray, plus drummer John Lingwood and aided by the strong & inspired vocals of Swedish vocalist Stefan Berggren, THE COMPANY OF SNAKES created some delicious rocking music on this album “Burst The Bubble“.
Formed in 1998, a year earlier a previous version of the group was known as The Snakes with a then-unknown Jorn Lande on vocals. THE COMPANY OF SNAKES debut CD mostly featured Whitesnake songs, but “Burst The Bubble” consists of original material, still full on smokey blues and rock’n’roll that stands proudly aside ‘Ready and Willing’ or ‘Lovehunter’.
We just love this album. With their timeless hard rock Made in Britain that is based on blues n’ boogie, The Company Of Snakes reduce possible arguments about trends and fashions to absurdity, while proving that there will always be an audience for their enjoyable brand of classic rock.
As you might expect for a band that featured three of Whitesnake’s original members and played virtually nothing but early Whitesnake songs in concert, this album sounds like classic Whitesnake.
There’s some AOR thrown in for good measure (“What Love Can Do”, “Hurricane”) but more or less ‘Burst The Bubble’ displays much of the same bluesy hard rock that the early Whitesnake albums did – all with a warm sound production.
There’s a lot of charm in “Little Miss Happiness”, “Labour of Love” is a bluesy rocker with the same excellent vocal arrangements we got used to listening to David Coverdale back in the mid 1970’s, then “Ride, Ride, Ride” takes you back to 1980.
“Back to the Blues” – like the title implies it’s a blues based rock song. We like the fact that Berggren keep his singing rather low, and not try to impress us with the “high pitch screams” some other vocalists seem to think is the main task for this type of songs.
If you sit around complaining about the current state of music and wonder where all the good times have gone, “Burst The Bubble” is the answer.
Highly Recommended
01 – Ayresome Park
02 – Labour Of Love
03 – Ride, Ride, Ride / Run, Run, Run
04 – Burst The Bubble
05 – Sacrificial Feelings
06 – What Love Can Do
07 – Little Miss Happiness
08 – Hurricane
09 – Kinda Wish You Would
10 – Days To Remember
11 – Back To The Blues
12 – All Dressed Up
13 – Can’t Go Back
14 – She
15 – Ayresome Park – Reprise
Stefan Berggren – Vocals
Bernie Marsden – Guitar
Micky Moody – Guitar
Neil Murray – Bass
John Lingwood – Drums