Once And Future King - Part 1

The wait is over....The highly anticipated Once And Future King is about to be released. After the release of the album Far Beyond The World by the melodic metal band Ten, lead vocalist Gary Hughes set out to produce his own rock opera. Besides being a member of Ten, Gary has several solo albums and was involved in the first 3 Bob Catley albums both as a producer and songwriter. All of his time and effort however, for the last two years, has been wrapped up in putting together this project, Once And Future King, which is based on the legends of King Arthur. The story itself is quite complex and Gary uses some of the best and talented vocalists in the business to bring the story to life. The list of vocalists includes; Damien Wilson (Threshold, Ayreon), Lana Lane, Danny Vaughn (Tyketto), Irene Jansen (Karma, Bob Catley (Magnum) and Sean Harris (Diamond Head). Helping out musically, along with Gary's fellow Ten band-mates, are Arjen Lucassen (Ayreon, Star One) and Graham Woodcock (The Quest) with additional keyboards. This album represents Part 1 of a 2 part story with Part 2 coming out this October.

This album certainly is well worth the wait. Fans of Ten and of great soaring and melodic heavy metal will rejoice in what this album has to offer. No weak tracks and each vocalist delivers top notch performances. Gary himself handles the lead vocals for the opening track Excalibur as well as Dragon Island Cathedral, Lies and delivers a stunning and haunting duet with Lana Lane on At The End Of The Day. One of the real pleasures for me is hearing the voice of Danny Vaughn again. I lost touch with what he was doing after the 1987 album Save Your Prayers by Waysted, a killer melodic metal album and maybe one of the best ever in the genre as far as I'm concerned. His voice really lights up the tracks The Reason Why and Avalon. Irene Jansen delivers a great performance on the song Shapeshifter and Bob Catley provides his trademark vocal excellence on King For A Day and In Flames. Sean Harris of the legendary NWOBHM band Diamond Head provides the voice for the track Sinner. The vocal performances are truly outstanding with each track having a great melodic structure and lots of great and very memorable choruses.

Musically, the album covers a lot of ground. Lots of haunting piano interludes add an element of drama to many tracks but overall, it's the guitar that dominates the songs. Lots of big sustaining riffs and great and solid lead playing are plentiful. A couple of songs contain some killer guitar riffs, one being Dragon Island Cathedral. This song kills!! and I think is the best track on the album. Thin Lizzy/Iron Maiden style harmony third riffs give a celtic feel to the song and the chorus, arrangements and use of great thick rhythm guitar produce a slice of metal perfection. Kansas style sounds and arrangements can be heard with the track The Reason Why but again, the strong riffs are still present. A few songs start quiet and laid back but slowly build into melodic metal monsters. King For A Day and Lies are examples of songs that use that format and excel in their grace and power. Avalon is charged up and very spirited track with solid melodies and vocals, great solid guitar riffing and has an almost Journey-like quality to it.

This is truly a killer album!! Every song is great (but with several being truly exceptional) and the painstaking attention to detail with the arrangements sure pays off. This album really is hard to put away, after several listens, the quality of this album really starts to grab you. Soaring vocal melodies, lots of up front guitar riffs and sustaining power chords all combine to produce one of the best albums in the melodic metal genre so far this year. The operatic nature of this release gives it that extra special quality that was so wonderfully portrayed with the Avantasia albums. This album, Once And Future King Part 1 continues in the same tradition and I think it really is the next best thing I've heard in the metal opera style besides Avantasia. A must have album for fans of Gary, Ten or of quality melodic metal music. I can't wait for part 2 as it doesn't get much better than this.......truly a masterpiece!!!