Ten
Ten

LA RECENSIONE

This is the first album by Ten, a British band led by Gary Hughes, also featuring the talented Vinnie Burns (former guitarist of Dare, one of the few AOR bands to succeed in England and abroad) and drummer Greg Morgan, while for bass and keyboards, various session musicians are involved!

Gary Hughes needs no introduction to metal listeners, a versatile artist present in several projects (including the personal one that retold the entire story of King Arthur a few years ago) and who was the main driving force behind the artistic resurgence of the great Bob Catley, leader of Magnum (among the founders of pomp rock). This is a fairly energetic hard-AOR album, with blistering riffs and solos. What distinguishes Ten from other bands with similar sounds is their typically English melodic taste that does not try to emulate the American leaders of the genre (as bands often do in this genre) by offering chromatic and melodic sounds that flirt with the charts, but are absolutely energetic and never saccharine or banal. Certainly, Ten is influenced by the American sound, but they are not dominated by it, interpreting everything from a European perspective. Thus, one is amazed by the guitar intro that shows us a Vinnie Burns completely at ease with his wild instrument, and leads us to the notes of the first song "It's All About Love," pure powerful and melodic hard rock anthem, before arriving at the beautiful "After The Love Has Gone," captivating, with great keyboard work before the chorus, one of the most beautiful AOR pieces ever written. The album continues with energetic tracks and superb ballads, making it one of the best hard rock albums of the '90s and certainly the main catalyst for the rebirth of AOR, which had been swept away (like much of the old-school metal) by grunge and similar! An important album also for the compositional freshness it shows, in a genre that is certainly among the least experimental and daring from this point of view. Also noteworthy are the melancholic and nocturnal "Stay With Me" and the moving "Close Your Eyes and Dreams."

This album is also the only one by Ten to display such sparkling, chromatic, and let's say "American" sounds, because then their sound will evolve into atmospheres with epic and Celtic influences, without forgoing the impact and power of Hard rock!