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Album Details
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· Produced By: Gary Hughes
· Running Time: 72.07 & 52.52
· Release Date: January 27
· Released: EU
· Genre: Hard Rock / Melodic Rock
· WebLink:
· LabelLink: Frontiers
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Artist Bio
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TEN celebrate their 10th Anniversary with the release of an “The Essentials” collection, a double CD divided into “Essential Rockers” and “Essential Ballads”.
Considered by many fans and critic as the best expression of British hard rock in the nineties: TEN released their first album in 1996. It only featured the nucleus of the band to come with Gary Hughes on vocals, Vinny Burns on guitars and drummer Greg Morgan both coming from DARE. After less than one year came "The Name Of the Rose", still today considered by many as the band's best album to date.
The title track was voted “Song Of The Year” by the readers of Japan`s top rock magazine, BURRN! Both albums were produced by Gary Hughes and Mike Stone (of JOURNEY, WHITESNAKE fame). The band was then completed with John Halliwell (guitar), Ged Rylands (keyboards) and Shelley (also from DARE on bass). The next album, "The Robe" was a huge step forward in the sound of TEN, leading strongly towards epic and majestic atmospheres and influences. Songs like the title track, "Arcadia" and "Ten Fathoms Deep" are considered to be amongst the best expressions of the British hard rock of the 90's.
But their major commercial success especially in Europe came with their following album: “Spellbound”, in 1999. The record had all the elements which decreed the vast success of TEN within the hard rock fans: melody and class, but also power and epic atmospheres, inherited by the tradition of the British bands of the 70's such as RAINBOW, THIN LIZZY and U.F.O.
A few lineup changes (most notably Steve McKenna taking on bass duties and Don Airey and Paul Hodson later on keyboards) did not really change the musical styles and success of the band that also gathered a great exposure and acclaim with the following release “Babylon”, a concept album based on a futuristic story of a computer programmer and his tragical love affair.
The following two records “Far Beyond The World” (2001) and “Return to Evermore” (2004, which saw the debut of the new guitar ace Chris Francis, taking the place of Vinny Burns) served only to solidify the band's reputation for great music and exquisite arrangements in great melodic hard rock fashion.
This brand new “Essentials” collection, apart from celebrating the first 10 years of the band, sees however a big difference however in comparison to the original material. In the words of Ten leader and singer Gary Hughes: "The tracks included are completely fresh recordings of the songs and more in keeping with the way the current line-up play the material, with new ideas on the old themes".
Ten's lineup has now evolved as follows with Gary Hughes on vocals; Chris Francis and John Halliwell on guitars, Steve McKenna on bass, Paul Hodson on keyboards and new drummer Lee Morris.
This collection serve as a fitting end to the first decade of the incredible success story of this band. A new album is being recorded right now for a spring 2006 release, at which time the band will undertake its biggest tour so far, taking in all of Europe and Japan.
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