Author: Aleš Podbrežnik
Artist: Burning Rain
Label: Frontiers Records
Release: 2000
Length: 61:35
Rating: 4/5
»Pleasure To Burn« is the second studio album from American hard rockers Burning Rain. It came out just one year after the debut »Burning Rain« (1999) – RockLine review HERE. It’s living proof that the songwriting partnership of Doug Aldrich (guitar) and Keith St. John (vocals) was a bullseye. The duo once again delivered the lion’s share of the songs for the new album, which boasts another hefty dose of the real deal: varied, above all dynamic hard rock playing that doesn’t skimp on the passionate charge of its musical message!
That said, »Pleasure To Burn« shows signs of maturing. That doesn’t mean it’s a better album than the debut. The two are equals in quality, and you’ll have to decide for yourself which one you like more. »Pleasure To Burn« isn’t as open, naive and, if you will, »vulnerable« as the debut »Burning Rain«. It takes artistic steps that are a touch more calculated commercially, but by no means sell out the genuine core of musical creativity that the hearts of its players were set on at the time. The sound is a bit more controlled, yet it still keeps a high level of that ever-present, raw, cocky »badass« testosterone in the blood after a ride through wild hard rock curves!
The sense of a more defined musical direction is underlined especially by the calmer songs (Faithfully Yours, Cherrie Don’t Break My Heart, the intro sections of Judgement Day), of which there are a few more than on the debut, where, with one exception, the album was made up purely of hard rock burners. Amazingly, though, the band still keeps up an extremely effective, fully defined run of infectiously memorable lead motifs that drive the album’s highly dynamic, ultra-tight flow. The addition of keyboards, which deepen the dark yet predatory mood especially in the semi-epic beauty Judgement Day, also shows that the band took care to dress up the arrangements a little more in a controlled way.
On a track like Metal SUperman the band allows itself more musical excess, leaving room for experimentation! It’s a real hard rock tornado woven from several motifs, underpinned by a groove funk form – and all of it stretched out by a hugely dynamic, inventive vocal performance from, once again, the excellent Keith S. John. With its slightly more complex makeup, the song could easily have found a place on one of the cult Extreme albums. It’s a full-on hard rock smash of a kind the band didn’t deliver on the debut, unfolding in a glow of unpredictability.
Then there are moments on the album where the vocals pull strongly toward Robert Plant. In the calm opening of Judgement Day, the melody at times comes very close to the verse of the Zepp classic All Of My Life, and the color of Keith’s falsetto is incredible too, a mix of Kelly Hansen (Foreigner) and Johnny Gioeli (Hardline) – and another one who comes close to the aforementioned Robert Plant is Lenny Wolf (Kingdom Come). Especially in the white-hot, dynamic, dramatic closing epilogue, this semi-epic composition comes close to the dramaturgy of the Zepp epic Kashmir, though fans of Germany’s Kingdom Come will find their ears perking up as well.
The brakeless rush of the opening Fireball and closing Devil Money is a distant tribute to the arrangement mold set in the seventies by Deep Purple (Speed King) and Rainbow (Kill The King). Love Emotion, Stone Cold N’ Crazy, Shut Down (a distant brother of Fool No More from the debut) are examples of flirting with the Whitesnake hard rock mold, while the sophisticated Cherrie Don’t Break My Heart is an interesting cross between Whitesnake (verse) and Foreigner (chorus) – a prime example of a song that was chasing a hit single!
A full measure of hedonism on the album! Love De Joeur stands out, with the growling talk box guitar effect right in the intro and on the transition from chorus to verse. The song is a prime example of the band’s true »badass« swagger, a band that knows how to crawl under the skin of a honeyed, untouched flower of the female kind with the »hard prowl« of its music. Brilliantly done! Sex Machine develops in just as wickedly naughty a fashion – with the vocal lines once again full of flirting with David Coverdale’s approach.
Burning Rain didn’t record another album until 2013. After the release of »Pleasure To Burn« in 2000, the band’s path broke off for more than ten years. Aldrich went off to earn his bread in Dio and is still a standard part of the new Whitesnake lineup today, while St. John went to Montrose. Only this year did they find enough time to get Burning Rain back together and put out a new studio album, with material that had been ready for many, many years. On that occasion, the move by Frontiers Records to reissue both of Burning Rain’s previous studio records is an extraordinary gesture, since neither album has been available on the market for years.
Why didn’t Burning Rain make it? Simple. They showed up at the wrong time in the wrong place. The style Burning Rain cultivated in 1999 and 2000 was firing on all cylinders commercially in the second half of the eighties. That’s exactly why the Burning Rain story ended quickly as well. Already in 2002. The rock gurus Ronnie James Dio and Ronnie Montrose sensed the band’s power and didn’t need to be asked twice. They didn’t waste a second and invited Aldrich and St. John to become permanent members of their lineups. That fact alone is proof enough that in their short existence Burning Rain were a seriously hot and respected hard rock phenomenon, delivering only the best musically! Not current, sure, but in its genuine energy still hugely attractive.
Lineup
Keith St. John – vocals
Doug Aldrich – guitar
Ian Mayo – bass
Alex Makarovich – drums
GUEST MUSICIAN:
Ed Roth – keyboards
Production
Doug Aldrich
Track List
1. Fireball (4:04)
2. Love Emotion (3:36)
3. Stone Cold n’ Crazy (5:22)
4. Cherie Don’t Break My Heart (5:17)
5. Shot Down (3:37)
6. Love De Jour (3:57)
7. Faithfully Yours (5:47)
8. Sex Machine (4:21)
9. Metal Superman (3:47)
10. Judgement Day (5:48)
11. Devil Money (4:47)
BONUS TRACKS on the reissue (2013):
12. Live For That Rush (unreleased demo)
13. Cherrie Don’t Break My Heart (acoustic version)
