Deep Purple
Burn

They are Deep Purple. It's the seventies. This alone would be enough to convey the honest rock 'n roll of this great album, but let's take it step by step.

After churning out masterpiece after masterpiece in the studio, the incredible In Rock, the more commercial Fireball, the excellent Machine Head, and last but not least Who do we think we are, interspersed with one of the 10 greatest live albums ever, Made in Japan, the historic Mark 2 has separated. Blackmore and Gillan, already at odds during the last tour, can no longer stand each other even though this doesn't really show in the latest studio work (Who do we think we are, indeed). So, the "iron-throated" guy decides to leave the lineup.

He is followed by fellow runaway, Roger Glover.

Blackmore, increasingly comfortable in his role as leader, courts several singers, including Paul Rodgers from Free, who after initial hesitation decides to continue with his work (he will found Bad Company). Finally, our Man in Black recruits, directly from Trapeze, Glenn Hughes, a singer with an extremely clear and high-pitched voice who also plays bass, and directly from an underwear store, the completely unknown David Coverdale, with a decidedly deeper and warmer voice.

And it is precisely on this (at least initially) fantastic combination of voices that the great success of the first work of Mark 3, Burn, is based, an album of, as mentioned at the start, very honest rock 'n roll.

Deep Purple decides to return to the sounds of In Rock, with a rougher yet more direct sound.

And so the turntable needle begins to spin on the vinyl, and we are immediately treated to a fabulous track, an exceptional masterpiece, a classic, a true monument in rock history (I think it's clear that I really like this track): it's Burn, one of the most powerful hard-rock tracks, a heroic gallop that seems to be Blackmore's first real nod to his (decidedly later) Renaissance-Music project.

Based on the very catchy guitar riff of the great guitar hero, the track is driven by Coverdale's aggressive singing, Hughes' high notes, Paice's drum pace, the two guitar solos, and especially the great keyboard interludes complete with a medieval theme. The lyrics talk about a crowd in revolt against a woman deemed "devil's sperm" and who is undergoing a burning.

With Might Just Take Your Life the initial tension is eased. A decidedly sweeter rhythm but once again very intense, with a chorus that after the first listen will immediately stick in your head, without even having to look up the lyrics online (You can't hold me/ I have told you/ Might just take your life), and excellent use of choirs and, again, the different musical styles of the two singers' voices.

Lay Down Stay Down is supported by the great Paice as usual, with a performance that should be among the basic exercises of every novice drummer. In any case, the track, more sung by Hughes than by Coverdale, confirms that the bassist is not a secondary voice at all, is a great Rock 'n roll, with a repetitive saloon-like keyboard and a great Blackmore solo who, perhaps driven by new enthusiasm, lets himself go more than ever throughout the album.

So here we are at the track, Sail Away, one of my favorites, where Hughes can finally unleash his Funky soul, and saying this I quote a phrase from Stevie Wonder who defined the blond guy "the blackest of the white singers" precisely because of this musical twist. The rhythm, a blues deliciously decorated with, indeed, funky sounds, is yet another demonstration of how exceptional this album is, which doesn't pretend to be anything more or less than an 'honest rock 'n roll' record. The song ends with a great performance by Blackmore, plus a Paice again in top form.

What happens? The turntable needle is not working anymore? Oh, right, it needs to be flipped!

(sorry, a stupid literary device... but it fits, it fits)

So we start, and we have four more songs left.

You Fool-no One would not have looked out of place as the opening track of this record, so impactful is it on the listener. Often proposed live, the song, masterfully introduced in Fireball style by a fantastic Paice, pairs its hard-rock stylistics with newly funky moments. Blackmore, wanting to give his best, leaves us once again speechless (around minute 3:00 my eargasm begins... hehe), not to mention the catchiness of the song and its chorus, even more fluid than Might Just Take Your Life.

With What's Goin' On Here, introduced by a job on the cymbals by the drummer, we return to the old-style blues. The dark guitarist accompanies the whole track, placing some beautiful guitar passages between verses. Lord plays the honky-tonk (or whatever the heck it's called) in full Ontario saloon style, and allows himself one of the most beautiful and fun solos of his career (perhaps only matched by the one present in the song Fireball ).

Now, I don't want to, but I can't resist. I have to talk about Mistreated. It's the most famous track from this album, always compared to Burn. Yet initially, it didn't convince me. I was able to reevaluate it later and today it is one of my favorites (especially live, see California Jam).

This very slow blues starts with a masterful Blackmore riff, continues with Coverdale's wonderful and heart-wrenching singing, perfectly aligning with the lyrics about a broken heart. It goes on with Blackmore who, having stopped his furious pace, leaves us with an acoustic guitar section in the body of the song that's so enviable, one of those that you know will hardly be repeated later. Today I've only seen something like it with Paranoid Android by Radiohead.

All band members are very fond of this song: Ronnie James Dio (when I listen to it I say: but who is Coverdale?) will perform it fabulously, and decidedly less anguished than Coverdale, with Blackmore's Rainbow. Coverdale himself, in Whitesnake, will give many live performances of it (he will also do so with Burn). Even Hughes, who in the studio fought a lot with Coverdale to decide who should sing this piece (and who probably convinced himself that for such a song a deeper voice is more appropriate) would reinterpret it during his solo career.

It closes with the very particular but, for an expert ear, highly successful instrumental duet of synth and guitar of A 200, where Paice concludes his excellent performance with a military march rhythm, and Blackmore leaves us with a true rocker solo (if listened to at speed I think this solo has been plagiarized at least 100 times by various metalheads), one of the best of his career.

The subsequent world tour will have a lot of success, as demonstrated by the legendary California Jam (readily available on video as well), and will be one of the last testimonies of the sonic evolution of this band which probably will never reach such peaks again, and will continue to propose already heard things or inevitably brought to the commercial (moments of sheer commercialism are actually found in this work too). But these discussions are getting old: Let's enjoy these moments, before various soulless 'artists' try to erase certain great musical moments from the collective consciousness.

Tracklist:                                                                     Line-up:

1 Burn                                                                        Voice: David Coverdale

2 Might Just Take Your Life                      Bass and Voice: Glenn Hughes

3 Lay Down Stay Down                                           Guitar: Ritchie Blackmore

4 Sail Away                                                       Keyboards: Jon Lord

5 You Fool-No One                                                   Drum: Ian Paice

6 What's Goin' On Here

7 Mistreated

8 A 200