BURNING CANDLE

Once in a while, and when I believe I have heard every Symphonic band from the 70's, an old forgotten band like BURNING CANDLE appears out of nowhere and gives me a chance to recover some of the astonishment I felt in the 70's, not without a bit of nostalgia.

This good power trio didn't impressed me at the first listen, even when it was obvious that Hans Peter Neuber is an amazing keyboardist, well supported by two excellent musicians like Klaus Schmidt-Drempetic and Rolf Vitzthum, because I thought they were another German ELP clones, but after a couple listens, discovered interesting things that made them very original and up to some point unique.

In first place, the music doesn't rest almost exclusively in the pyrotechnics of a keyboardist like Keith Emerson, the three members have a well-defined role and work together as a perfectly oiled machine instead of being an ego contest like many others.

As I said before, Hans Peter Neuber is the key member, but he manages to avoid excesses allowing his band-mates to shine as a much as him, but even better, allowing the group to sound as a band. Klaus Schmidt-Drempetic not only provides a solid bass but also adds his very good voice (somehow reminiscent of Greg Lake) but Rolf Vitzthum takes the project into another dimension adding a clear jazzy drumming that gives the band a special flavor.

The album starts with Stranger, a clearly ELP oriented track with abundant keyboard solos, but always with that jazzy feeling that takes them in another direction than most power trios of the 70's.

Eternal Faith is a beautiful piano intermezzo that only reinforces the idea of Hans Peter Neuber being a classically trained keyboardist. A good change after the frantic opener.

The Appearance of the Ghost is a magnificent track that offers us everything that we can expect from a Prog band from the golden era. The introduction is vibrant and energetic with fluid organ and moog solos, but around the 1:20 mark it changes radically into some sort of power ballad with Klaus Schmidt-Drempetic giving us a very solid vocal performance that reminds me a bit of From the Beginning..

But the surprises don't end here, again the keyboards take the lead just before a drum solo after which we enter into Jazz territory. One of the best and more versatile songs I heard lately, just what any Progressive Rock fan with blood in his veins will enjoy.

When the listener believes that there will be no more surprises, the band gives us Mosella, an acoustic track that really broke all my schemes, never expected something like this in a keyboard-driven album, but enjoyed the balance they created.

The album is close with Expedition to the Sun, a 14 minutes epic that shows us what this guys were capable of, a fusion of sounds, styles and genres that enjoyed from start to end.

After listening Burning Candle from start to end, I can't understand why this guys never became an important act, because they had everything to cross their frontiers and enter into the British market, but most of all, is incredible to discover that no label has taken the risk to release a CD with this tracks and probably lost material that the musicians must have somewhere in their houses waiting to be listened.

PS: Almost forgot, my rating it's four solid stars, even when I was tempted to give them five.

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