TEN JINN

Our second release by an American band. Of today's crop
of bands, Glass Hammer, Spock's Beard and now Ten Jinn seem to be the
brightest purveyors of this style. The sound is a well crafted
harmony-vocal based rock with hooks, integrated with grandiose, often
complex and colorful instrumental parts befitting the finest of progressive
rock. Ten Jinn, on their second release has delivered the goods. The disc
is effectively a double-album; part one is the forty minute title suite, comprising eight parts, three instrumental and five with lyrics based on themes from the
vampire novels of Ann Rice. Part two is six mid-length tracks more-or-less
unrelated to the first part. The most prominent features are the
songwriting - which contains strong classical elements run through the
seventies rock filter, and the arrangements - including liberal use of
melodic hooks and multi-part vocal harmonies. John Paul Strauss' lead voice
pulls out all the stops and has a soulful and deep mysterious quality to
it, often reminding this writer of Michael Sadler of Saga. The instrumental
attack and arangements may remind of Saga as well ("Heads or Tales"
period), but are sometimes closer to "Night At The Opera" period Queen, in
fact "Beautiful Marquise" (part six of the title suite) is a deadringer.
With dual keyboards in the purely
instrumental passages, the band is able to reach the heavy symphonic
territory of bands like Renaissance (Novella era), yet the guitar presence
is very strong as well, with Stan Whitaker's unmistakabe ferocious leads
and support work fortifying every track on the disc. Production-wise, the
disc is nothing short of outstanding, with utmost care given to every sonic
detail. Recommended to fans of Spock's Beard, Glass Hammer, and of course
Saga, this ambitious sophomore release now places Ten Jinn in the major
leagues of the current progressive rock scene.

 

Tenn.gif (28966 bytes)
AS ON A DARKLING PLAIN
RHCD18

Discography:

"Wildman ECR - 1997 (US only)
"As On A Darkling Plain" RHCD18 – 1999

Members:

John Paul Strauss – Lead & Backing Vocal, Piano & Keyboards
Mark Wickliffe – Drums, Percussion, Backing Vocal, Keyboards, Guitars & Bass
Matt Overholser – Electric & Acoustic Basses
Bob Niemeyer – Keyboards & Backing Vocals
Michael Matier – Electric, Acoustic & Midi Guitars

Guest Musicians:

Stan Whitaker – Electric Guitars
Kenneth Francis – Electric Guitars & Backing Vocal on "Beautiful marguise"

Review in Catchy Hooks Magazine, July 2000
Rating 8/10

TEN JINNīs second release "As on a darkling Plain" begins with a forty (40) minutes long Progressive/Symphonic epic in eight parts, with lyrics based on themes from the vampire novels by ANN RICE and with a sound a-la bands such as " SAGA,GENESIS,GENTLE GIANT, MARILLION,YES,RUSH & SPOCKīS BEARD" makes this album a pure joy ? for fans of long & complex songwriting.The other 6 songs are all in "normal" length..for prog-rock that is.
This CD (like many otherīs prog/symphonic albums) gets better & better for each time you play it and this music style has never really been about hitīs and 3 minutes long catchy tracks.No,what you get is a story told by a band that wants to get their message through.
Vocalist "John Paul Strauss" have got a good,strong voice that reminds me of both Mike Sadler (SAGA) & Jon Anderson (YES) and the keyboards by "Bob Niemeyer" are nicely played with great skill.The 40 minutes long title track "As on a darkling Plain" is a lovely told story about "Lestat" and all his vampire friends ! The 3 instrumental parts & the 5 with vocals are all candy for a Prog-lover.Other highlights are "I CANīT SEE"   the MARILLION meets YES sounding "TOMORROW"  but best of them all is the last track "LAY DOWN BESIDE ME" with some superb vocal harmonies and a catchy chorus.Yeah..this is their "hit" song,even if weīve talked about this already :-) Iīd say that this a CD that ALL fans of the above mentioned bands really must check out  www.recordheaven.net & www.loop.com/~tenjinn 

 

Review by George Thatcher
 Heart Of The Rock Magazine

Here we have a Los Angeles based progressive rock band called Ten Jinn working out on a Swedish label. Record Heaven are garnering a reputation for releasing quality product based around progressive rock as well as early 70's styled hard rock bordering on the psychedelic genre. In the case of Ten Jinn, they are very much in the present tense, with a sound crossing between Saga, Kansas and some of those Magna Carta label bands such as Cairo and Shadow Gallery.

As with a typical progressive band, there's lot of intricate keyboards and grandiose musical passages where the album theme gets explained from one track to the next. In one case, we get mutterings based around the works of novelist Anne Rice. The lead singer John Paul Strauss moves easily between the vocal style of Michael Sadler (Saga) Tracy White (Shotgun Symphony) and Geoff Tate (Queensryche), while the complexity of the music keeps the listener on his/her toes.

Now as far as progressive rock goes, Ten Jinn is definitely on the lighter side where the emphasis is on musical dexterity, rather than the all out bludgeon of a band like Symphony X for instance. There are some good performances here: track 2 'Darkling Plain' is good and musically interesting, the instrumental 'The Legacy Of Magnus' is a superb lead-in to 'Run Away' while the Saga comparisons kick in on tracks like The Dance Of Les Innocents' and 'Lost In The Money'. Ten Jinn has some commercial moments too such as 'Blind Authority' and the rather quirky 'Byzantine Fire'.

However, for the most part, I had trouble trying to get into the heart of the album as most of the material though good, really didn't grab me by the 'short and curlies'. I found the vocal style and the harpischords a little bit offputting at times, though on the other hand, the musicianship was excellent throughout, with some interesting ideas and arrangements being explored.

A good introduction nonetheless to an above average progressive rock band, who could improve remarkably with some fine tuning.