Review Summary: 10 Years stand, if not shoulders, at least a head above their contemporaries in rock radio, delivering an interesting and highly thematic work that proves that the group has only a few kinks to work out before they're ready for stardom.
At its heart, this is a CD that defies most attempts to describe it. You can reduce it to the sum of its songs, or attempt to categorize it or dismiss it through an easily assigned rating. But it’s hard for me to say how this album emotionally makes me feel. There is a sense of darkness throughout, but it is the shadowy half-light of dusk; no moment seems totally beyond any hope of redemption or a suitably majestic chorus. It is hard to imagine 10 Years crafting a similar sounding follow-up; this album is full of introspection and self-doubt (never self-hatred or self-pity, however; leave that to Tool and Evanescence), an insular and self-contained release that never seems to expand, yet is never too limited for comfort. The band’s sound on this release seems to fit the record’s name; there is a sense of regret, alienation and decaying beauty that mirrors the effect of the fall season on nature.
This thematic rather than technical nature is reflected in the instruments. Not once will you hear any sort of solo or even impressive guitar lick emerge from the proceedings, the drummer never excels beyond the skills of his peers, and the bassist is unremarkable- but it all comes together to inspire feeling, if not also thought as this band’s obvious inspiration Tool manages to do. Heartfelt emotion seems to pour from lead singer Jesse Hasek’s every pore- not a single line sounds contrived or forced. Some tracks, like “Wasteland” and “Empires,” seem either too radio-ready or too filler-ish to strike the same emotional chords as songs like “Waking Up” or the title track do, but even if it does not provoke an inner response, the band’s determination and sincerity breaks through on even the weakest songs.
The band has a distinctive sound that reflects an almost unbelievable level of maturity for a debut album. Anybody with a reasonable level of exposure to this band could identify a 10 Years song on the radio. However, this consistency of music comes with a price- the band has trouble making every song sound different from the one before. The first three songs on the album blend together, getting slightly heavier as they go but with little to make them seem like altogether different pieces of music. “Empires” comes off as a repeat of the far superior “Half-Life,” which might have been less of an issue if Half-Life had come second; as it stands, the album suffers from a lack of focus of its greatest musical ideas. A 45- or 50-minute CD would be brilliant; as it stands, the CD is a bit overlong and loses some of its impetus toward the third act. If 10 Years could condense separate interesting ideas from songs like “Insects,” “Cast It Out” and “Empires” into a shorter amount of time (everyone will have different choices for songs that should have been modified like this), the CD would be more concise, wound tightly around its central theme of autumn and the emotions it seems to reflect and inspire.
As I have said before, there are two facets to a band’s creativity. The first and most important is if it stands alone and sounds little like other bands; the second is whether it repeats its own ideas a bit too much. Since this album is almost conceptual in its focus, one can excuse a small failure to create a diverse array of music. But 10 Years may be the first band to somehow patent a readily identifiable song and yet sound quite similar to some of its contemporaries. Tool is a fairly obvious influence (as it seems to be on every band these days; either them or Nirvana/Nine Inch Nails/Rage Against the Machine), but some parts sound like a slightly less ponderous and despondent Staind, and still others recall the eerie melodies (if never the same misanthropic internal struggle) of Alice in Chains’ heyday. The band subscribes to a fairly predictable pattern of song structure; a few attempts shine through as unique. “The Autumn Effect” features a long hidden track/coda that seems to be a fair representation of the album as a whole, yet follows its own path and takes you along with it. Even more interesting are the two instrumental stretches that follow, respectively, “Cast It Out” and “Through the Iris.” Both are enjoyable, playing simple but striking riffs with an ear for ambience that recalls Tool if they knew to give their similar compositions a more distinctive and enjoyable element that made it worth listening to. Both are a bit overlong and wear on- they yearn for a solo or some sign of prowess at some point, but nothing ever comes. The band is good as it is, and the CD is great, but a few small displays of showmanship might make this record exciting as well as enjoyable.
10 Years have made a piece of art here. I use the term not solely as a compliment. They have created an album that invokes an emotional response and creates a haunting, pensive mood that endures to the very last second of the CD. There are moments where more could be said, but they have their place- if every song was the same quality, the album might become monotonous. As they are, a few rough parts serve to accentuate the beauty of the record as a whole. Keep an eye on 10 Years. They’ve shown real potential for more than just an enjoyable album. They have it within themselves to blow the listener away- they just don’t do it all the time. But the moments where they do are enough to make this CD a must for any rock enthusiast, and highly recommended for anybody who is not deaf.
