Ten Years After - Watt [Japan Ed.] (1970)

Year: December 1970 (CD Oct 27, 2004)
Label: Toshiba Records (Japan), TOCP-67505
Style: Rock, Hard Rock, Rhythm and Blues
Country: Nottingham, England
Time: 38:27
Format: Flac Tracks 16/44,1 kHz
Size: 254 Mb

Charts: UK #5, AUS #13, CAN #16, DEN #7, FIN #7, GER #9, ITA #8, NOR #8, SWE #13, US #21.
Not exactly 'burnout', but a really disappointing album. Blame it on the heavy touring, though - creatively the guys are still there. But they just didn't have enough time or forces, and Watt is an obvious lightweight toss-off to satisfy the record company and the fans. Musically, there are no advances over Cricklewood Green here, and the atmosphere is quite similar: same sharp riffing, grim atmosphere and angry pissed-off vocals, although in general the mood is a little lighter, simnply because the songs are clearly underdeveloped in every respect and they just didn't have the opportunity to tighten up the production. Or the lyrics - does their catalog of texts contain a line more stupid than 'baby don't you cry don't you cry you shouldn't do that'?
Obviously, they suffer from lack of material; whatever the hell for else should they have put 'Sweet Little Sixteen' from their 1970 Isle Of Wight gig at the end? I mean, it comes off pretty well - fast, furious and driving - but this ain't a live album, so why bother? It doesn't work at all in the context of the album, and it ain't all that interesting musically, just a bunch of power chords and generic Berry-licks. If they were really so deeply bothered, they should have put out the entire Wight gig instead: if you consult the Message To Love video, you'll see Alvin doing a pretty nifty live version of 'I Can't Keep From Crying' on there, with speedy solos, sonic gimmicks and everything that's his trademark style. 'Sweet Little Sixteen' is just unrepresentative.
And if we don't count the short acoustic-driven instrumental link 'The Band With No Name' which sounds like it's been taken directly from an average movie soundtrack (sounds very close to whatever Danny Kirwan was penning for Fleetwood Mac at the time - pleasant, but unsubstantial folk-pop), there's only six songs on here, most of them extended well beyond the expected and necessary running time. That's my main complaint, in fact, because the main melodies themselves are more or less good and show that Alvin's songwriting talents were slightly on the rise (and would reach the apex on the next album); he'd also begun experimenting with complex song structure, not being too successful here but at least laying the ground for more effective things to come.
(full version - https://starlingdb.org/music/tenyears.htm#Watt)

01. I'm Coming On (03:48)
02. My Baby Left Me (05:23)
03. Think About The Times (04:43)
04. I Say Yeah (05:17)
05. The Band With No Name (01:37)
06. Gonna Run (06:02)
07. She Lies In The Morning (07:24)
08. Sweet Little Sixteen (04:09)

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