BURN THE SUN

Hmm I don't really see why everybody finds this album a masterpiece of progressive music. Still a good album but apart from some Queensryche influences and a few melodic elements here and there, this is straight heavy metal. The singer's voice is a mix of Ronnie James Dio and Glenn Hughes and the music is very reminiscent of Iommi's last album "Fused".

"Heal The Waters", "Burn The Sun" and "Absolute Zero" are classic hard rock songs. "Torn" is quite darker, with a weird mood that shows especially in the vocals. "Resurrection" is probably the most progressive song here, with a lot of mood changes. "Just A Little" is a beautiful acoustic ballad with a touch of spanish folk. "Waking Hour" is another dark power ballad with very powerful vocals, close to what Black Sabbath did in the Tony Martin era ("Headless Cross", "Anno Mundi"...). "Noose" is a fast paced metal song with vocals really close to Dio. "Feed The Fire" sounds like an attempt to do a more commercial song (a single maybe), and so it sounds really like a Journey song. The last two songs are again close to Iommi/Black Sabbath songs - "I Bleed" is a weird song, mid paced with vocal experiments and "Missing You" is a power ballad (I was almost waiting for Glenn Hugues to sing the first notes of "No Stranger To Love" after the melodic intro!) with the classic faster paced break in the middle of the song that is typical in Iommi/Black Sabbath power ballads.

Rating: 80/100 (4 stars)