While I’ve always prided myself as an AOR connoisseur of sorts, I’ll be the first to admit I’m not the most familiar with Ten. I do however have enough surface knowledge of the band to assess their work. For those unfamiliar, Ten were one of the few bands in the late 90s keeping the old school AOR sound alive. Albums like The Name of the Rose (1996), The Robe (1997), and Spellbound (1999) are widely heralded as melodic rock masterpieces, and rightfully so. From 2000 onwards, I haven’t kept up with them as vigilantly as I should, but I like what I’ve heard, especially 2015’s Isla de muerte (Melodic pirate metal? I best hold my tongue).
Fast forward to 2023 and Ten are still chugging along with their 16th studio effort, Something Wicked This Way Comes. It was a little under a year ago that they released their last album, Here Be Monsters, which I meant to review, but somehow let slip between the cracks, so I wasn’t going to make the same mistake here. Leading the Ten charge as always is singer, guitarist, and primary songwriter, Gary Hughes. Vocally speaking, he doesn’t boast the range or firepower of a Steve Perry or Ronnie James Dio, but he makes up for it with his warm, signature delivery and knack for writing memorable songs which traverse the AOR spectrum.
Ten’s sonic approach varies from album to album. Some albums are rather heavy, veering on full blown melodic metal. Others emphasize catchy pop rock hooks that would’ve found their way onto the radio in the 1980s. Something Wicked This Way Comes does a little bit of both, with a healthy dose of Magnum inspired bravado thrown in. “Look for the Rose” kicks the affair off in melodramatic fashion with its bombastic vocal delivery and euro metal riffage. The dark and moody title track, as well as the pseudo-prog of “Brave New Lie” are also bound to appeal to fans of the symphonic/power/prog metal realm. Perhaps it’s because the composition of these songs lie closest to their 90s output, but for my money, they’re the strongest tracks on here.
This isn’t to undermine the remainder of Something Wicked. Songs like “The Tidal Wave”, “The Fire and the Rain”, and “The Only Way Out” competently channel the pop driven AOR of 80s titans FM and Bryan Adams, albeit with perhaps more poetic lyrics and a keen sense of class. The gutsy wartime inspired “Parabellum” keeps things rocking with its big, crunchy riffs, while “When Darkness Comes” boasts an unorthodox fusion of old school metal attitude with a clean poppy sheen. “The Greatest Show on Earth” sees the band closing things out with one last display of over the top AOR artistry, par the course for Ten.
Something Wicked is far from Ten’s finest hour, but all and all, it’s another fine entry in their catalog, or at least what I’ve heard of it. Hughes and his fellow melodic rock minstrels remain determined as ever to craft songs straight from the heart, not the assembly line. Their passion is ever present and potent, not just on the theatrical cuts. When it comes to AOR, Ten is still the number to beat, and I don’t see that changing anytime soon.
7 out of 10
Label: Frontiers Records
Genre: AOR
For fans of: Magnum, FM, Dare