10 Years' Division: An Ambitious Musical Effort

There's a lot of people who thumb their collective noses at mainstream rock right now. Formulaic bands such as Theory of a Deadman, Nickelback, Hinder and countless others have permeated our airwaves with tracks that are as downright unoriginal as they are infectious. Does this mean that they're doing a bad job? Hardly.

What it does, however, is turn people off the radio and whatever they could discover on your local rock station. Thankfully, for every "Photograph" or "Lips of an Angel," we have a song or two that escapes and leaves people to discover the brilliant mainstream rock you can still find. This leads me to this review of 10 Years' sophomore effort, Division. The band behind 2006's quiet little success "Wasteland" have returned with a more ambitious effort than their last one, which says quite a bit considering that the freshman effort was as ambitious as it was excellent.

With a sense of lyrics similar to those written by Incubus and the occasionally invoked Tool, front man Jesse Hasek takes his listeners on a sonic journal through thirteen tracks that are emotional highs and lows, along with the sonic pleasure that you'll take from listening to them. While some tracks are lengthy with their addition to atmospheric instrumentals that transition from song to song, most tracks clock in under four minutes, meaning no song is really overstaying in its welcome. Then again, some readers would wish songs would as beautiful as they are. From the album's fast-paced opener "Actions & Motives", to its finale "Proud of You", the album fails to disappoint. Many people would start by referencing the band's lead single for the album, the scathing indictment of a person lacking inner beauty ironically titled "Beautiful", for where to start with the album, but that wouldn't do it justice. Starting from track one and going to all the way to the end gives you a far more satisfactory listen into an album that will be well worth every second you spend on it.