Albums: The Autumn Effect, Division, Killing All That Holds You

10 Years is an alternative hard rock band based in Knoxville, TN. Initially formed in 1999 with former lead singer Mike Underdown, drummer Brian Vodinh, bassist Lewis Cosby, and guitarists Ryan "Tater" Johnson and Matt Wantland. In 2001, they independently released "Into the Half Moon".

The band recruited a local singer, Jesse Hasek, and bassist Lewis Cosby left; the band then recruited Andy Parks on bass. The next year (2002), Parks left and Cosby came back, forming their current line up. 10 Years started out created a strong underground following with their independent release Killing All That Holds You.

In 2005, 10 Years signed with Republic/Universal Records, entered the studio with producer Josh Abraham (Staind, Velvet Revolver) and recorded their debut album The Autumn Effect. The Autumn Effect has arrived just in time to counteract the cynicism and to take rock music to its next logical destination. Humanity is slowly shutting down, says the band's frontman Jesse Hasek, who points to the current rock scene as a prime example of this lack of community.

Music is supposed to be about intensity and feeling, but there's no thinking behind the music that's out there today. We want people to think, to feel emotions again. We're always plugged in, or connected to something, part of the machine, but the more we plug in, the less human we become.

10 Years has evolved from a wake of high school metal bands, to the more melodic, heavy fusion of The Autumn Effect. Less is more, the band says of their sound, and nowhere is that more apparent than the summer radio hit, Wasteland. The title track swirls as an intrepid soundscape with an influx of modern aggression, from a whisper to a scream that could fill a stadium, from strum to angst and back again.

Sledgehammer riffs propel the cosmic Empires, while the sun-drenched Prey builds into a heavy metal gape, the perfect combination of breezy pacing and humid undertones. Melody marches through Waking Up and The Recipe is an exhilarating blitz of frenetic energy, while Half-Life kicks the ears in, each track exhibiting a new, distant depth of 10 Years' that seamlessly stretch them, morphing into a progressive realm far beyond the scope of modern flash-in-the-pan comparisons. The Autumn Effect resonates as much lyrically, as it does musically.

Prey, for instance, was inspired by the band's move to Los Angeles to record their debut album, and Hasek's observation that people in L.A. drive cars worth more than some of the houses in their Tennessee hometown. Empires is about this generation of people who are addicted to material possessions and rely upon these possessions to satisfy all the needs of life. The Recipe is about how casual consumption of lust with random strangers devalues and destroys the ability to love.

We are living in an individualistic ego driven society that celebrates fame, lacks ambiguity that is incapable of deep sustained attention with no discontinuity between life and art. Seasons to Cycles is about people who build walls to separate themselves from others. In building walls we lose contact with people and we dont realize these same walls confine the growth of relationships.

Whether we're talking about love, substance abuse, temptation, or whatever, all the songs are about life, and the emotions that we all go through, says Hasek. Life is an organic process of growth and decay, and it is unavoidable in nature. Division is the bands newest CD, released May 13, 2008, and their following has increased ever more.

So much, in fact, that the CD reached #12 on the Billboard Music Charts, and #1 on the US Hard Rock Charts. The single "Beautful" reached #6 on Billboard's Hot Mainstream Rock Tracks in 2008. Over the course of the past year, 10 Years has opened for the likes of Velvet Revolver, Breaking Benjamin, Mudvayne, KoRn, Distured, Linkin Park, Static X (and more), more than holding their own, while making new fans all along the way.

10 Years offer more than just music and words they deliver a mission statement...Just call The Autumn Effect the soundtrack to our new and improved lives, a signpost to a future where we're more than just cogs in the machine, but vibrant beings that can touch the God within. Official site: www.10yearsmusic.com

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