•
Rating: My dear gentlemen, what a splendid double album!
I could give it the highest score, put a nice period, and end the review here, but unfortunately for you, I won't do that, also because the work of Mr. TEN, Gary Hughes, cannot be summed up in three lines, absolutely not.
"Once And Future King," that's the title of the work (and it couldn't be defined otherwise), an album released in 2003, tells us about the epic life of King Arthur, taking historical cues from various versions of the story and retracing, thanks to the help of the various musicians involved in the project (including Lana Lane and Sabine from Edenbridge for the female voices, while among the men we find Bob Cately as a fantastic Merlin just to name one), the whole story of this legendary and mythical figure in over an hour and a half of music divided into two discs.
The first CD, closer to AOR sounds, presents ten songs strongly influenced by the music of Gary's main band, so we will find a lot of epicity and "pomposity" in the melodic structures, with great attention paid to the sound of the keyboards, true protagonists along with the voices of both CDs; highlights and representative songs of this first part can be considered, in my opinion, the first track "Excalibur" opened by an orchestrated intro to which first the bass (played by Mckenna, the bassist of Ten who delivers a truly commendable work in this case) and then all the other instruments that introduce at minute 2:35, the voice that helps enhance the track.
Other key points from this first part are represented by the exciting "Shapeshifter", in which a splendid Morgana, interpreted on the occasion by Irene Jansen (My God, what a voice this girl has, an eighties voice that sends shivers down the spine!) guides us through 4 minutes and 45 seconds of pure AOR extremely melodic with a nice guitar solo positioned in the middle of the piece; also, worth mentioning always in this first episode is "Avalon" (a very commercial melodic rock, but truly pleasant also surrounded by a very poetic text) and the final "Lies" piece hard rock endowed with a good chorus and performed once again in the best way.
The second part (which I personally prefer a little) is closer to hard&heavy with strong progressive shades that contaminate a bit all the tracks: the start is entrusted to "Kill The King" which decidedly puts the foot on the accelerator compared to what we have heard so far, also resorting to distorted voices close to growls; the same can be said for the next "There By The Grace Of The Gods" introduced by a delicate bass, then returning to hit hard thanks to powerful yet still extremely melodic voices and orchestrations. Also to be mentioned is the very fun and almost nonchalant "The Hard Way" endowed with a truly easy melody that wouldn't feel out of place on national radios of great diffusion, as well as the penultimate ballad "Without You", an extremely delicate and sweet piece. The finale, however, is really with a bang and is entrusted to perhaps the best track of the entire concept: "Once And Future King" is an extremely dramatic song characterized by a slow pace and a very slow melodic base and a vocal interpretation so touching it melts the heart, plus the applause-worthy chorus that significantly enriches it.
As far as the historical aspect is concerned, there is nothing to complain about, as by reading the lyrics (by Hughes) one can see how our good Gary has strived to maintain as much as possible the similarity with the events narrated in the stories, while greatly romanticizing the story between Guinevere and Lancelot. Very good then, although to be honest the work has a few small (and negligible) flaws, the first of which is the inclusion of the instrumental "Deius" truly superfluous and also somewhat unpleasing. From an aesthetic point of view, more effort could have been put into creating better covers, which are really a bit unattractive, but these are venial sins that can easily be forgiven... and then for a piece of hard rock like Gary, well, I would forgive even much more "serious" things.
Tracklist:
Part I
1) Excalibur
2) Dragon Island Cathedral
3) At The End Of Day
4) The Reason Why
5) Shapeshifter
6) King For A Day
7) Avalon
8) Sinner
9) In Flames
10) Lies
Part II
1) Kill The King
2) There By The Grace Of The Gods
3) I Still Love You
4) Oceans Of Tears
5) Rise From The Shadows
6) Believe Enough To Fight
7) The Hard Way
8) The Pagan Dream
9) Demon Down
10) Deius (Instrumental)
11) Without You
12) Once And Future King
Loading comments slowly
