Stephen
Doug Aldrich's name had been a main attraction for guitar lovers since his days in Lion and Bad Moon Rising, and in 1999, he formed Burning Rain with singer Keith St.John, and the formation was strengthened by former Hericane Alice and Bangalore Choir's bassist, Ian Mayo, and drummer Alexx Makarovich. Burning Rain's musical direction is a mix of blues-drenched hard rock with some melodic touch, imagine Lynch Mob, Whitesnake, Mr.Big, and Badlands in the same room, and you'll get a pretty picture of how they sound. I can hear a heavy influence of David Coverdale in St.John's voice, and sometimes he even reminded me of the late Ray Gillen.
This debut was packed with lots of electrifying hard rock/heavy metal songs but ironically, the best part of this album is the ballads, "Making My Heart Beat" and "Can't Turn Your Back On Love". Some other great uptempo tunes with some extravagant solos from Mr.Aldrich can be found in "Smooth Locomotion", "Jungle Queen", "Fool No More", and "Can't Cure The Fire". However, the unbalanced composition makes this album a bit patchy, especially on some bumpy fillers such as "Cherry Grove" or "Heaven's Garden".
If you like a magnificent and exceptional guitar delivery, Burning Rain's strength laid precisely on that instrument and this could be an excellent buy. For casual fans of hard rock, this is still a good album despite of some weak tunes. The follow-up album, “Pleasure To Burn” is slightly better but since they only released two albums, it's wise to own this as well.