GARY HUGHES – Veritas

One of the great minds of Melodic Rock returns once more: Gary Hughes who has brought eight studio albums with his main band Ten, the first three Bob Catley Solo albums, the two-parted Once And Future King epos, and, of course, no less than four solo efforts. At least several of the Ten albums can be called great, the Catley trio brilliant, and the Once And Future King duo a landmark in British Melodic Rock. But, his name is always connected to Ten, so whatever he does is going to be compared to The Name Of The Rose and The Robe — forever. But, maybe that does not bother him too much, especially as two of his Ten bandmates Chris Francis and John Halliwell help him out on this release as well, as every single album he was involved in as a songwriter so far carries the typical trademarks and let’s one recognize his style immediately. A musician who can claim such a distinguished style of his own deserves his new album to be eagerly awaited.

Veritas is certainly just that among many Hard Rock fans, and even though the last albums of Ten were merely efforts with mixed success, Gary has maintained a level of quality that makes his fans return to buy any new work released. And truly, the new album starts out quite good with the opening track “Veritas.” Bombastic, melodic, sometimes being on the brink of being kitschy, he delivers exactly what is expected and gets his audience humming. “See Love Through My Eyes” follows next and is the reason why he will always have every work compared to Ten, because this is a typical Ten tune. Maybe even too close, as certain similarities to the title track of the Robe album are undeniable. Another track on the album has a similar Ten feeling; Track 9 “All I Want Is You.” Unfortunately, that also rounds up the good moments on the album.

The rest of the album contains a few ballads that are not up to his usual standard (“Wide Awake In Dreamland,” and “The Everlasting Light”), and modern sounding but boring standard Rock songs (“In My Head” and “I Know It’s True”). It seems Gary wanted to sound more contemporary and steered the production into this direction, but a Nickelback and Linkin Park sound just does not become his musical style. Also, it seems that he listened to a lot of old Billy Idol lately, as “Strange“ and “I Pray For You“ bear witness.

But, all that would only be a disappointment. What tips the scale is “The Emerald Sea“ with its sickening oversweetness and the most anticipated song from the album, “Synchronicity” — most anticipated because it is the longest song in over eight minutes; normally that points to the epic, moving, and bombastic center piece of any Gary Hughes release. In this case, the only attribute fitting is embarrassing. With one and a half minute of a child’s voice and a bit later a female voice uttering the same childish sing-a-long part that starts it off, only to have this theme reappear constantly and dragged out until the eight minutes are finally over — this is a bad Pop tune that would cause all to switch channels if it were to get airplay. The eight minutes feel like twenty the first time heard, and every time after that it gets worse.

This is the worst Gary Hughes release ever, and even the most bashed Ten album beats this work. With two and a half good songs, the only recommendation can be to put on The Robe or Legends and forget about this as quickly as one can … ’cause all know what brilliance Gary is capable of, so file this under “experimental failure” and wait for the next release!