Ten Years After: Ten Years After

Blues-rock benchmark reissued in extras-packed format.

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Rather like equivalent debuts by contemporaries Cream and Fleetwood Mac, Ten Years After’s first album from 1967 is a bedrock release for electric blues fans everywhere.

On this hefty reissue we get the original mono album, a new remaster in stereo and a bonus disc with 11 B-sides and live cuts from Top Gear (the 60s radio show, not the BBC’s automotive wankfest).

Adventures Of A Young Organ is incredibly cheesy, but there’s no denying the fleet-fingeredness of the late Alvin Lee on I Want To Know and Willie Dixon’s Spoonful, as well as his knack for a ballad – see Help Me for irrefutable proof. The stereo mix is welcome, giving these ancient cuts a chance to breathe, but the extra tracks are inessential, although fans should make a point of investigating Spider In My Web, the flipside of the 1968 single Rock Your Mama.

Joel McIver

Joel McIver is a British author. The best-known of his 25 books to date is the bestselling Justice For All: The Truth About Metallica, first published in 2004 and appearing in nine languages since then. McIver's other works include biographies of Black Sabbath, Slayer, Ice Cube and Queens Of The Stone Age. His writing also appears in newspapers and magazines such as The Guardian, Metal Hammer, Classic Rock and Rolling Stone, and he is a regular guest on music-related BBC and commercial radio.