Stephen 'Stormwarning' marks a solid comeback by Ten, and not only it's the first fresh material in 5 years, but it's also a real strong return to their early style that most fans love. I never considered myself a big fan of Ten but I owned most of their albums because they put up a classy performances of melodic rock, songs are mostly good, the only thing I dislike is Gary Hughes' singing style.

He's a talented bloke, I won't argue with that, but he kept crawling in the low register voice which sounds so depressing to me, but that won't deny the fact that this album contains lots of greatly-arranged tunes. This album felt very average to me at the first spin, but it grows and shines on the third and fourth, and the song 'Endless Symphony' is a massive epic opener, running in mid-tempo but packed with heavy riffs and mindblowing solo.

'Centre of My Universe' and 'Kingdom Come' are good but many greater songs emerge on the second half. 'Book of Secrets' is like House of Lords messin' with Warrant's 'Uncle Tom's Cabin' and done in Ten way, strange and beautiful. The title track is a superb uptempo track and the chorus is awesome. 'Love Song' is a very nice power ballad, started slow at verse before bursting high at chorus, but it's a lengthy track, probably better if they can cut off to 5 minutes top.

'The Hourglass and The Landslide' is the best track here, overflown with heavenly melodies and extremely catchy. 'Destiny' is anthemic, folkish, and sounds like a great song to rally the troops. 'The Wave' is a nice simple ballad, reminds me a lot to Enuff Znuff's classic, 'Innocence', from 1993. Overall, a great album, and also Dennis Ward's touch on the production is flawless. If you like AOR with some heavy riffage, or if you're familiar with early Ten, you don't wanna miss this one.

Time Signature Endless symphony...

Genre: AOR / melodic heavy metal

Ten are known for their style of melodic metal meets AOR meets hard rock, and this album certainly is a quite hard rocking affair which offers catchy melodies, classic 80s metal style riffage and awesome guitar solos.

The music is marked by a touch of melancholy, which is in part attributable to Gary Hughes' voice and in part to the musical compositions themselves. Tracks like "Centre of my Universe", "Book of Secrets", "The Hourglass and the Landslide", and "Destiny" are good examples of melancholic yet hard rocking tracks which emphasize melody and accessibility. The title track falls under the same category, but is, with its use of guitar harmonies in the main riff and power metal-like elements, a notch above the rest. "Invisible" is more of a straight rocker, which is still at bit melancholic and contains a quite cool classic 80s metal chorus. The opening track "Endless Symphony" is, not surprisingly, a symphonic rock/metal track with some pretty nice metal guitar riffage and amazing guitar work.

I've read some negative reviews of this album which criticize Ten for not being inventive enough and too formulaic, but, personally, I don't think that "Stormwarning" is boring or uninteresting - although tracks like the pop-rock songs "Kingdom Come", "Love Song", "The Hourglass and the Landslide", and "The Wave" may be too commercial and soft for some metalheads (I like those songs though) - but I do agree that we are not dealing with innovative music here. And so what? It's still awesome!

On a side note, fans of Fates Warning might take interest in this album as it features Mark Zonder on drums - but don't expect progressive and complex drumming; Zonder provides solid and straight drumming, which fits Ten's style perfectly.

If you like AOR and melodic metal, then you should check out this album. Do not expect it to be innovative or groundbreaking, but expect instead solid melodic hard rock / heavy metal which is catchy and accessible but still meaningful and sophisticated.