Bernie Marsden + David Coverdale, “Trouble” from Shine (2014): One Track Mind

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For all of the band’s turnover, rare is the former member of Whitesnake to work with David Coverdale again. Once you’ve left, for whatever reason, you’re usually gone for good. Except Bernie Marsden, one of the few to have maintained a relationship over the years.

Marsden, a member between 1978’s Snakebite EP and 1983’s Saints and Sinners, memorably rejoined Whitesnake for the 2011 Sweden Rock Festival — the first time he’d played with Coverdale on stage in some three decades. He’s also working with Coverdale again on this stand-out moment from Shine, an updated Whitesnake track released via the Mascot Label Group’s Provogue imprint.

This searing version of “Trouble,” to my ear, traces back past collaborative Whitesnake highlights like “Here I Go Again” to reestablish tandem connections with Deep Purple. Beginning with a darkly suggestive acoustic riff, “Trouble” rumbles toward a confrontational groove that finds Coverdale growling with a lascivious danger. That sense of cocky risk was largely missing through Whitesnake’s post-Marsden run up the music charts in the late-1980s, the victim of that era’s focus on mainstream sleekness.

Instead, “Trouble” recalls the best of Coverdale’s 1973-76 period with Deep Purple. Marsden, meanwhile, remains a wonder of fiery determination, unleashing the kind of sharp-edged retorts that made his work with a pair of Deep Purple alumni in Paice Ashton Lord such an underrated moment in late-1970s rock. Purple’s Ian Paice and Don Airey also join Marsden on Shine, as does Joe Bonamassa. Elsewhere, the project features a series of other Marsden originals, along with a flinty cover of “Dragonfly,” from Fleetwood Mac’s Danny Kirwan.

Nick DeRiso