Ten Years After
Cricklewood Green

The presence on this site of two reviews, both somewhat laconic and nonchalant (to put it mildly), prompts me to write a few additional lines about the work in question, introduced on the cover as can be seen by a curious and impromptu "still life," a bit... perhaps the top of the dresser in the ethnologist grandfather's room of one of the musicians? Ah, if only we knew...

Ten Years After were one of the successful groups of the so-called British blues of the late sixties, originating from Nottingham and converging on London to play their card, eventually managing to conquer, even if only briefly, the USA market where this 1970 album and a couple of others before and after soared high in the charts, as a reward for the continuous and exhausting tours they conducted in those parts.

The strengths of the quartet were primarily the spectacular guitar playing of the leader Alvin Lee, admittedly more superficial than anything else with his very agile but motivically poor phrasing, followed by the solidity and effectiveness of the rhythm section, especially bassist Leo Lyons, a great boogie rock beast. On the other hand, the weak points were Lee's voice, nothing special especially when compared to the great vocalists in the same field (Rod Stewart, Robert Plant, Paul Rodgers, Jack Bruce, Chris Farlowe, Steve Marriott, etc.), as well as his non-exceptional compositional vein, which limited the development of the pieces to few tonal variations, with the melodic lines of the vocals almost always anchored to the blues scale and its expressive standards.

All these characteristics can be verified exactly in the album in question, structured in eight episodes among which the two longest ones stand out, characterized by long psychedelic jams within. The most famous of the two is entitled "Love Like A Man" and relies on an engaging, monotonous riff in the key of E, simple and linear in the unison between bass and guitar, perfect for beginner exercises on these instruments (and many kids did, at the time... myself included!). The rhythm ignites only in the central instrumental part, where bass, drums, and organ begin to swing in double time always on E, and Alvin, after engaging a nice vintage fuzz distortion, launches into a psychedelic and free escape, with difficulty brought back to the base riff for a final verse and closure.

The other tour de force is instead titled "50,000 Miles Beneath My Brain" and features a very similar structure; this time, however, there is no central instrumental climax enclosed between an intro and closing reprise, both sung, but rather a single and continuous crescendo that from a very quiet, almost ballad-like prologue, swells and extends ad libitum, in jam session on a few chords, with Lyons' powerful bass drive prominently in the foreground; up to the final fade that is even double, after a brief resolution, just to make the piece last a minute longer.

Among the other episodes, all of normal duration, we mention the introductory soul rock blues "Sugar The Road," very basic and developed also on very few harmonic variations, then the well-accessible up-tempo "Working on the Road," the semi-acoustic almost archaic blues "Year 3.000" and the notable rip-off of B.B. King's style in "Me and My Baby."

Ten Years After were a group of good, not outstanding caliber, and their success, moderate but not fully realized, was essentially consistent with their artistic stature. It's always a pleasure to revisit these works that smell of the early years of rock, of analog recordings on no more than eight tracks, of relaxed instrumental self-indulgences directly extracted from the constant, tireless live activity. An album where rock still breathes, respects its dynamics, drags without deafening.