BURN

Though Deep Purple wouldn't quite record another explosive album like 'In Rock' in the studio, it did record a very well written and performed album called 'Burn'. With two great vocalist, David Coverdale and Glen Hughes, the band would introduce an exciting rocksong format in which both performers would enhance the music by switching leads between verses, bridges and refrains. The album fires one memorable songs after another and whilst the rhythm and blues influences are clearly the basis of the music, there's enough room for deviating from the path. The fast-paced hardrock opener 'Burn' with its exciting transitions between parts and brilliant vocals sets the tone perfectly. To me this song sounds a bit like the hardrock follow-up of the Beatles song 'Help'. 'Mistreated' is a perfect bluesrock song and the album ends surprisingly with an instrumental progressive rock piece called 'A 200' - a tradition that many bands would follow. The recording of the album is tad bright and on some stereo sets a little extra bass doesn't hurt. I would agree with Bonnek that this album, together with 'In Rock' and 'Made in Japan', form the best trio of albums you could own of Deep Purple. The live footage of California '74 shows this Mark III configuration of the band on fire and also comes highly recommended.