Restless Heart is the ninth studio album by English hard rock band Whitesnake, released by EMI on 26 March 1997 in Japan and 26 May in Europe.

Restless Heart was reissued by Rhino Entertainment in 2021, featuring remastered and remixed versions of the album, among other previously unreleased material.

After completing the Liquor & Poker World Tour in September 1990, vocalist David Coverdale elected to put Whitesnake on hold, wanting to take a break from the music industry.

[5][6] Their previous writing sessions prior to Coverdale's collaboration with Page had broken down after Vandenberg presented songs "more suited to Chicago or Poison".

[12] In the studio, Coverdale and Vandenberg were joined by bassist Guy Pratt, keyboardist Brett Tuggle and drummer Denny Carmassi, all of whom had performed on the Coverdale–Page tour.

[13][14] Restless Heart marked the first time Adrian Vandenberg played on a full-length Whitesnake album throughout, despite having been a member of the group since 1987.

[16] The sound of Restless Heart has been characterised by music critics as mellower and more blues-influenced than Whitesnake's previous two studio albums.

[17][18] Music journalist and author Martin Popoff characterised the record as "variously poppy, bluesy, rootsy, but still often heavy rockin’".

[18] A number of Coverdale's unused ideas for a second Coverdale–Page album were reappropriated for Restless Heart, namely on the songs "Woman Trouble Blues" and "Take Me Back Again".

[5] Lyrically, the album's title-track explores Coverdale's mindset during Slip of the Tongue and its accompanying tour, when he became worn out "trying to fulfil everybody else's expectations".

[32] Restless Heart was reissued by Rhino Entertainment on 29 October 2021 as a multi-disc box set, featuring remastered and remixed versions of the album, as well as previously unreleased demos and outtakes.

[34] Some of the remixed songs had previously been included on a series of compilation albums, collectively titled the "Red, White and Blues" trilogy, which were released between 2020 and 2021.

[4] During a promotional trip to Japan in July 1997, Coverdale and Vandenberg were asked by Toshiba EMI to perform an acoustic set of songs.

[43] Metal Hammer's Andreas Schöwe commented positively on the record's more "finely nuanced vocal parts", though he stated that some listeners may be weary of the album's softer sound compared to Whitesnake's previous releases.

[20] Jerry Ewing, writing for Classic Rock, described Restless Heart as a "curio" in the band's discography, falling somewhere between a Whitesnake album and a David Coverdale solo record.

[15] In a separate piece, Classic Rock's Neil Jeffries ranked Restless Heart second-to-last in David Coverdale's overall studio discography, describing the songs as either "limp ballads" or "derivative rockers".