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Frontiers [Release date: 20.01.23]
Here’s another Ten album title that will again appeal to the literati or the cinephiles among the band’s fans. It’s their sixteenth studio release since 1996.
Ever present founder/ writer/ singer, Gary Hughes has gathered a decent set of musicians around him, and has brought in Denis (Pink Cream69/ Khymera) Ward to mix the album.
And while the band clearly have not set out to reinvent the wheel – an upgraded retread is what they had in mind – they’ve wisely maintained the idea of the designer song title. Like ‘Tidal Wave’, ‘Fire And Rain’ and ‘The Greatest Show On Earth’. Such smarts add a surface gloss to the pomp and the AOR.
You have to say that the crackly, nasally tones of the spoken word intro on opener ‘Look For The Rose’ owe more to Gollum than the “Macbeth” witches. That’s not to play down the high minded songwriting that is generally the staple diet of Ten’s music, but it’s an indication that the music sometimes gets overwhelmed by its own deadly seriousness.
‘Brave New Lie’ and ‘Something Wicked…’, the title track, are strong songs. The twinned up axework of Dann Rosingana and Steve Grocott work hand in glove with the vocal sections. Both are punchy, dramatic and wordy slices of edgy melodic rock, with Hughes’s emotional tones often well up in the mix.
Here and there we are reminded of artists from the melodic rock era.
‘The Only Way Out’s blast of AOR harmonies and up tempo radio friendly tones are reminiscent of Christian Rock giants, Liaison. ‘Parabellum’ (Prepare For War) acknowledges the world’s sad state of affairs without risking controversy or blowback, and that’s bizarrely but very skillfully matched with an AOR / Pomp Rock style redolent of Rick Springfield’s mid eighties persona.
Strangely (OK, perhaps not), the album’s standouts are much closer to MOR.
Framed in a lush strings and a sweetly romantic piano setting, ‘New Found Hope’, a sophisticated ballad, and ‘When Darkness Comes’, a tightly constructed and evenly layered song of regret and lost opportunities, are the album picks.
No chest beating here. The restraint in Hughes’s vocals is perfectly tailored for a wider market.
Maybe that signals the way ahead. ***1/2
Review by Brian McGowan
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