This is a value two CD package, the first filled with Essential Rockers, the other Essential Ballads. Ten have always had a following in their home country, but have enjoyed a higher profile on the continent and the Far East (No not Lowestoft?? DOH!), this collection of their finest works encapsulates the first ten years of the band's career.

Instead of just chucking all their best tracks on a CD and releasing it as most cash in type greatest hits packages do, Ten have re-recorded their fave tracks to give them a contemporary slant. The old tracks with upgraded production values that make Def Leppard sound like The Ramones live have all had even more veneer added. With founder members, singer Gary Hughes, supervising this process they have done a fine job of remaining true to the original material while adding the now familiar Ten sound of recent time. 

It’s obvious from the lush production that there is a market for polished AOR with epic themes, it just all sounds a little calculated. There are parts of the guitar inserts that I feel are very familiar and have heard it all before. You’re watching Men and Motors with bikes flying around the Isle of Man and there is an anodyne guitar solo as the backing track? That’s where you heard it.

“The Name of the Rose” kicks it all off with an acoustic atmospheric intro, this is Europe in the mid 80’s tastic, big hair, spandex, ludicrous lyrics, superb production though. “Wildest Dreams” has massive backing vocals and hooks to die for, strangled by po-faced laugh out loud clichéd lyrics.

“March of the Argonauts” (Stop tittering at the back!) has sword and sorcery pretensions with bombastic drums and strings which lead into “Feel the Force” featuring a unicorn and a dragon, belting stuff! If this was a vinyl album I could put the needle on every track where the solo is, and every solo is technically proficient but as soulless as Satan himself.

“Ten Fathoms Deep” has a an epic story to tell, musically it presses the right buttons, Hughes has a talent for bigging things up vocally and it works if it all wasn’t done so bloody seriously.

The Monastic choral intro ladelled with acoustic mood sets the scene for another slice of cod metal buffoonery with “Apparition”. If this was some 80’s German metal half wits (as it could be!) it would be funny, but as it’s supposedly NOW it’s completely hilarious.

If you don’t smile at the beginning of “After the Love has Gone” and instantly recognize Queen and Bon Jovi then I’m afraid you are deaf. It gets better, mystic Celtic ramblings aplenty, pipes and tribal drums to give you the hint in “Remembrance for the Brave/Red” follow, all delivered without a hint of irony with a mid Atlantic accent! I occasionally re-visit early Priest, that I adored when I was twelve, and snigger at just how seriously I took them, with maturity and catching them live in their heyday I realise that the tongue was planted very firmly in cheek. I hope for Ten’s sake that the same is true when they do this live. Anyway back to the grind.

“Spellbound” has a decent lick that suffers loss of gritty impact with dour methodical delivery and crass tired lyrics. “The Robe” is another unfathomably solemn faced attempt at doing epic which is delivered in a box marked  “Pompous mystic twaddle” featuring what sounds like the Vienna Boys Choir on the cusp of their balls dropping! Finally “Evermore” re-visits the Highlands with the now traditional psuedo-gaelic pipes just to let us know via the medium of a sledgehammer where they are coming from! Stuart Adamson from Big Country will be turning and chortling in his grave. 

In short, to quote somebody or other, “For those that like this sort of thing, this is the sort of thing they like”. There is nothing intrinsically wrong with this album, it’s just metal you could play stuck in a lift with your gran. The production gives a big impressive sound, but for me is a tad overdone. I love the sound of an overdriven guitar but apart from one or two occasions, like an ancient bulldog with no molars left, the bite has been removed. It sounds as if they’re so busy trying to do epic and imposing that they forgot to have fun. I can understand why they are a roaring success in Japan and Europe, but it’s all a bit yesteryear, with lyrics drowning in an ocean of clichés (a cliche in itself?). 

Please don’t get me started on the ballads disc, three words, mawkish trite nonsense. Like a saccharine doused overblown melancholy love-struck pixie wading through treacle, is the only way I can describe what it sounds like. And that sentence in itself is bollocks, which encompasses my feelings nicely.

The lyrics for this one were discarded by Coverdale 30 years ago in a draw labelled “Way too Cheesy!” Rock is a dirty, sweaty, nihilistic, alcohol fuelled good time. This is metal by numbers.

Let us know your views on 'The Essential Collection'

Track List

The Name Of The Rose/Wildest Dreams
The March Of The Argonauts/Fear The Force
Ten Fathoms Deep
Apparition
After The Love Has Gone
Remembrance For The Brave/Red
Spellbound
The Robe
Evermore

Till The End Of Time
You're In My Heart
Yesterday Lies In The Flames
Virtual Reality
We Rule The Night
Silent Rain
Through The Fire
Sail Away
Valentine

Line Up

Gary Hughes - Lead Vocals
Chris Francis - Guitar
John Halliwell - Guitars
Steve McKenna - Bass
Lee Morris - Drums
Paul Hodson - Keyboards