Deep Purple's mark 2 final effort!Battles rages on deserves the 5 stars for two reasons:some of the songs-Lick it up,Talk about love, Time to kill might be just good and always pleasant to listen to but some other songs like the groovy RAMSHACKLE MAN, SOLITAIRE, ANYA, THE BATTLE RAGES ON, ONE MAN'S MEAT are some the best songs of mark 2 reunion.I really believe this album is as good as PERFECT STRANGERS, it just didn't come out as such a surprise!

The second reason why this album deserves 5 stars is probably because being aware of the fact that Blackmore wasn't going to surprise us anymore with DP, he left the band not long after which gave a enormous rebound to DP's carreer and this might not sound like a good reason to buy this album but it is in fact!BATTLE RAGES ON is Blackmore's ultimate legacy to all purple fans and the last notes on this album might be the very last he created for DP and we should really enjoy them!

After the disastrous Joe Lynn Turner experiment on "Slaves And Masters" Deep Purple came roaring back on "The Battle Rages On." While Joe Lynn Turner is an excellent singer, he doesn't fit the Deep Purple style nearly as well as Ian Gillan. On TBRO Deep Purple returns to the style of "Perfect Strangers" with great success. A much harder edge prevails throughout the album, but the band sticks to their roots, getting a bit bluesy at times (a good thing), but mainly sticking to straight-ahead rock. Standout tracks include "Nasty Piece of Work," the bluesy "Ramshackle Man," and the blistering title track. Ritchie Blackmore's guitar is much more prevalent than on the previous 2 albums, and the production is crisp and clean. A must-have for any Purple fan.

This is my favorite of the post-reunion Deep Purple - and it's hard to compare to the 70's days, as it definitely has a more updated, 80's metal sound (although this came out in the 90's - but "90s" metal implies to me power, death/black, grunge, nu-metal, etc. - this is still rock-based, guitar-riffing, metal like Judas Priest, Scorpions, Iron Maiden, etc.) The songs are great, the musicianship is great - you've still got (for the last time) the classic "Machine Head" lineup of Gillan, Glover, Blackmore, Lord, & Paice. If you like classic metal, get it!

I think some people were a little harsh when reviewing this album. The title track itself is the heaviest I've ever heard Deep Purple, it's has such great guitar-work especially around 3:30 when you hear the "dueling" guitars! "Anya" has a great acoustic opener, then kicks into some fancy vocal and guitar. "Ramshackle Man" is a great blues-sounding track, while "Solitaire" has some very haunting lyrics. "One Man's Meat," is a great song, even through the stupid lyrics. I'm not going to say that this was the best Deep Purple album, because it really wasn't. "Lick it Up" is such a trash song, "Time to Kill" has an awful chorus. The songs that I spoke of kindly really more than make up for the other trash on here. The title track and "Anya" are really worth the money. Give it a try.

This is a pretty steep dropoff from "Perfect Strangers" and "House of Blue Light" which were already a steep dropoff from the glory days of the early 70's. Blackmore seems to be about out of ideas (confirmed by his subsequent bailout and move to acoustic Renaissance music) and Gillan's vocals are multi-tracked and mixed into oblivion. Nevertheless, fans of the classic lineup will find a few nice moments here. The title track and "Anya" are about as good as anything they did in the 80's, but the remaining tracks are mostly uninspiring (and sometimes difficult to tell apart).