10 Years

While many bands that achieve success on terrestrial radio–like 10 Years—are often faceless, and indistinguishable, and can be interchanged without much thought, 10 Years manage to sidestep the rest of the like-sounding pack by grafting slightly progressive riffs with vocalist Jesse Hasek's talk-sing vocal style. The result on Division is a little bit Tool, a little bit A Perfect Circle, and a little bit of Staind.

Division is radio friendly rock that’s got a melancholic, and yes, a bit of a mopey current coursing through every single one of its bleeding, supercharged veins. 10 Years easily switches gears, shifting from head-down yet raucous rock songs "Just Can't Win" to contemplative, acoustic ballads with introspective beating hearts, like "Focus," which was cowritten by Stone Temple Pilots guitarist, Dean DeLeo. 10 Years earns more than a few points for its bipolar personality, and their deft skill in swinging the musical pendulum back and forth several times during the course of the album.

—Amy Sciarretto
05.09.08

Knoxville, TN, alt-metal act 10 Years made their major-label debut with 2005's The Autumn Effect, an effort much beholden to the likes of Tool and Staind, and the album scored a big radio hit with the single "Wasteland." Reportedly recorded in a fractious intra-band environment (hence the title), Division sounds like the work of a band that carefully and thoroughly deconstructed its previous hit and attempted to replicate it several more times for the follow-up. Division is a smooth, radio-friendly record featuring new producer Rick Parashar's glossy layers of instruments and vocals. Occasional moments also suggest that the bandmembers now consider themselves "artists": the coda of "Picture Perfect (In Your Eyes)" is nearly as long as the body of the song itself, and features a spoken word poem read by one of the album's female backing vocalists. Division may well have the intended effect of prolonging the band's chart life, at least temporarily. ~ Stewart Mason, All Music Guide