Label: Frontiers Music Srl.
Release date: March 12, 2021
Production: Gary Hughes
Album length: 49.48 min
Genre: AOR / Melodic Rock
Rating: 8.0/10
Gary Hughes – a name well known to fans of the British take on eighties AOR, as well as to lovers of old-school hard rock, who know exactly who’s behind Ten – dropped a new solo studio album called “Waterside” in the middle of this March. His seventh overall. It comes fourteen years after Gary’s previous solo record, “Veritas”. Clearly, this era of “total lockdown” and restrictive measures, which we’ve been living through for more than a year now, is also an era of solo album floods. Musicians like Gary probably wouldn’t have had the time to piece these together otherwise. Plain and simple. Obligations to their main bands.
Musically, Hughes’s new album leans on the legacy of his self-titled studio album, as well as “Precious Ones”. In other words, on the early era of his solo career, which also happens to sit right alongside the Ten era. Some tracks on “Waterside” occasionally (which makes perfect sense) bring Ten to mind – and among the references, the band’s earliest works are the ones worth mentioning, such as the albums “X” and “The Name of the Rose”.
On his new album, Gary got help from Ten members Dann Rosingana (guitar) and Darrel Treece-Birch (drums), while David Rosingana handled the bass and the backing vocals came from Karen Fell and Scott Hughes. At moments the album feels “retro-Ten-ish”, and that label is hard to dodge anyway, because Gary’s voice is so distinctive and recognizable that it stands apart in character from singers trying their hand in similar genre territory. That vocal character is, in a way, the one-of-a-kind element that defines both Ten albums and, of course, Gary’s solo records.
“Waterside” is, above all, a deeply personal album. The tales of mysteries, legends and other stories from the world of fantasy, mythology and history that turn up on Ten albums have been set aside by Gary this time, and he’s turned to describing the themes of real life. That makes the album softer, with keyboards and classical piano often even taking over the bulk of the arrangements, though at every moment it’s fundamentally a clearly defined rock album, as the phrase spotlighted in the opener All At Once It Feels Like I Believe makes plain right from the start.
The songwriting style is, of course, expected and clear. Fans of Ten and of this musician’s solo work will get their money’s worth. The album is satisfyingly varied and colorful in terms of ideas. Admittedly, the surplus of AOR and radio-friendly pop rhetoric is laid on thicker, which also bumps up the surplus of sugary moments and puts the patience of fans of both Ten and Gary Hughes’s solo work to the test. Anyone looking for real heaviness in the sound of this album won’t find “Waterside” all that gripping. But it will definitely make Ten fans happy.
The production is a sound polished down to the last detail, with pleasing coloring and contrast between the building blocks of the sonic picture, and the unique vocal charisma of this seasoned, battle-hardened singer front and center. “Wateside” is exactly what you expect from Gary. A very nice new solo studio effort that steps convincingly along the path of the softer side of traditional British melodic rock.
Author: Aleš Podbrežnik
Tracklist:
1. All At Once It Feels Like I Believe
2. Electra- Glide
3. Lay Down
4. The Runaway Damned
5. Screaming In The Half Light
6. Waterside
7. Video Show
8. Save My Soul
9. Seduce Me
10. When Love Is Done
Line-up:
Gary Hughes – vocals, backing vocals, guitar
Dann Rosingana – guitar
David Rosingana – bass
Darrel Treece-Birch – keyboards, drums
Karen Fell – backing vocals
Scott Hughes – backing vocals
