BURN

The departure of Ian Gillan and Rodger Glover from Deep Purple boosted the band's quality as the band came around for one more good album. "Burn" takes on a classic Deep Purple sound, though not as heavy as 'Machine Head' or 'In Rock' but still contains some good rock/prog(ish) songs. The title song in particular features some very characteristic prog elements, namely the adaptation of classic music into rock music, in this case played by a pair of electric guitars and keyboards. Richie Blackmore's guitar work is as good here as ever and carries the album along.

The title song is by far the best on the album and leaves one in high hopes for the rest of "Burn." It soon becomes clear that the rest of the album isn't at the same standard as "Burn", but some of it comes close. There are some very proggy songs in "Burn", and some just plain hard rock structured songs. Generally speaking the songs are at quite a good quality which a few major highlights and really nothing which can be classified as 'bad.' While not up to scratch with some of the band's more famous works "Burn" still carries a laid back feel, despite the problems some of the members were experiencing. The quality of musicianship is good here, with Blackmore in the limelight on guitar.

1. Burn (5/5) 2. Might Just Take Your Life (4/5) 3. Lay Down, Stay Down (3/5) 4. Sail Away (3.5/5) 5. You Fool No One (3/5) 6. What's Goin' On Here (3/5) 7. Mistreated (3/5) 8. "A" 200 (4/5) Total = 27.5 divided by 8 = 3.437 = 3 stars

"Burn" is a worthy addition to your Deep Purple collection, though I wouldn't go as far as saying it is near the five-star level. Burn is very prominent in my mind as far as hard rock/prog albums go. The few very good moments in "Burn" really level the album out to three stars with me. I'd recommend Burn to serious Black Sabbath and/or Led Zeppelin fans as these two bands along with Deep Purple make up the three original English Hard Rock bands. All these bands are similar and contain their own special touches. "Burn" proved another success for Deep Purple reaching number 3 in the UK and 9 in the US.