About 18 months ago The Burn were chosen (alongside with the Music) by Noel Gallagher as the support bands for their 10 Year Anniversary tour. More recently they've also kept Paul Weller company on his acoustic jaunt around the UK where the Face described them as "the most likely band to be making an uproar in 2003".

The album "Sally O Mattress" was released at the end of March and this is bands last date of their twelve date headline tour. The band has a no nonsense approach with plenty of scally attitude and macho posturing as soon as they hit the stage. After an instrumental jam they fuse all the best elements of Cast, The Coral and The La's on the electric folk song "Calling All" . "Big Blue Sky", their next single is an emotive power ballad which recalls both Oasis and the Smiths is a far cry from the raw blues of "Drunken Fool" and leaving the stage they encore with a Bob Dylan song which explains half of the Burns story.

With that working class determined self belief the Burn deliver the goods live, but like many Northern bands once you look past the attitude their isn't much of a personality and as a result they can often comes across as humourless and lacking in charisma. While unoriginal the Burn has a devoted fan base and if they can write that all important hook they could go all the way.

Nicholas Paul Godkin