As former screecher with Deep Purple and Whitesnake, David Coverdale has more to live down than most aging hard-rock vocalists trying to age gracefully, but he makes a game stab at it on Into the Light. The only photo of him on the sleeve shows the famous peroxide mane tidily cropped, and relies on a battered acoustic guitar as a central prop. Sadly, as a metaphor for the music, this is only partially apt. While ballads such as "Love Is Blind" and "Don"t You Cry" are attractively melancholy, Coverdale"s forte is blustering bellicosity. The big guitars and bigger keyboards are in command from the early "River Song" onward, and by the time he yelps the grim doggerel of "Wherever You May Go" ("You mean the world to me / More than I can say / And when I look at you / It takes my breath away") you"ve got conclusive proof that you can take the man out of the metal, but... --Andrew Mueller