Ten: Gothica

The Ten line-up of Gary Hughes - vocals, backing vocals, guitar, bass and programming, guitarists Dann Rosingana, Steve Grocott and John Halliwell with Steve McKenna – bass, the luxuriously named Darrel Treece-Birch – keyboards and Max Yates - drums and percussion, are now onto their third album as a unit and as with all things Ten a Marmite reaction has ensured. Arguably more than any other band within the melodic rock genre Ten divides opinion. I consider myself a definite fan yet I can see why some find loving Ten so very difficult.

This is one of the few albums recently which I have consistently listened to from front to back on a regular basis. It's well sequenced and the duds are pretty non-existent. I saw Ten a few year years ago and Gary Hughes noted from the stage that every Ten album has a highly commercial number on it, well, this one has two; "La Luna Dra-cu-la" and "In My Dreams" which appears to be about a geek getting his teenage kicks. Yes, one of the "faults" of Gary Hughes' writing is when, as a middle-aged man he gets his sexy off and some of the Conway Twitty groans on "In My Dreams" are a tad uncomfortable as is the lyric and lingerie images of "Welcome To The Freak Show" but the melodies are so memorable!

Occasionally, as is often the way with Hughes' work there is a suspicion that he's trying to show off his intellect whilst ending up being overly wordy – perchance a stronger producer/editor would help but the man is a musical auteur and he's not changing now! It may seem like I'm down on Gothica but I'm not, it's a Ten album and I like (nay, love) Ten and am confident this if you have ever been a fan of the band then you should be splashing the cash and slotting it into your collection as soon as possible.

Track Listing:
1. The Grail
2. Jekyll And Hyde
3. Travellers
4. Man For All Seasons
5. In My Dreams
6. The Wild King Of Winter
7. Paragon
8. Welcome To The Freak Show
9. La Luna Dra-cu-la
10. Into Darkness

Added: July 31st 2017
Reviewer: Simon Bray
Score:
Related Link: Band Website
Hits: 2600
Language: english

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