Ten Kens

“Alright...so Ten Kens have nothing to do with ten Kens and everything to do with creating mighty psych rock shitstorms. Live, Ten Kens are even more devastating.” - Tiny Mix Tapes

“They are a mighty exciting proposition, with some seriously well put together and powerful rock music.” - The Fly

"Throughout the set, Ten Kens play off one another with what seems to combine a great flair of improvisation with a solid and tight core. The band create dark, epic songs that meander dangerously from one direction to another without ever losing focus. Ten Kens proved tonight that they are a band of incredible talent, especially live and raw, and if there’s any justice in the world, the next few years will see them snowball from understated strength to strength.” - It's Not For The Cock

“These guys play rock music, but their influences come from all over the place, there’s hints of folk, Arcade Fire and early Pixies all mixed in there. With the time changes and augmented chords, this is not your regular 3 chord band...you’ll be hearing more of this lot.” - Rokbun

“They remind me of Dungen, if it was filtered through a Sonic Youth / Thom Yorke lens.” - The Coast

“Opening proceedings is a band that should be finishing them more often than not in the coming months...Toronto four-piece Ten Kens. While playing live they seem to be incredibly well tuned and quite visceral; the sole guitar is really given some room to explore by some weighty and often distorted bass lines. While he strikes a power figure, vocalist Dan Workman sounds more akin to Josh Homme circa-Kyuss. An angelic quality about his voice that shapes and moulds itself into any musical landscape his band mates muster behind him....” - Muso's Guide

“Ten Kens comprise of four dudes, none of them actually called Ken. Hailing from Toronto, they’re considerably less visually attractive then that city’s most famous export Crystal Castles, but almost as much fun live.” - Clash Magazine

“Ten Kens started the show off. As the heaviest band of the three, their take on noisy indie rock impressed everyone, leading to an odd mix of dancy head bopping and moshing. The quartet each showed their respective chops throughout their surprisingly long opening set, experimenting with noise and interesting rhythms througout...I was caught off guard by their unique, heavy indie rock.” - Hearwax

Golden talent at Canadian Music Week - ”Ten Kens shift between indie rock melodies, noise breakdowns, and Ennio Morricone-style guitar licks with some definite metal influences. Ten Kens seasmlessly blend genres together, spitting them back out with an aggressive energetic delivery that draws attention. Their darkly melodic experimental indie rock is like finding your grandfather’s WWII service knife in a dusty attic: it’s sharp and a little bit heavy, with a bit of grunge around the edges.” - The Strand

"With one foot in the brittle compulsive sound of c86 fused to grunge and the other firmly in the arena of modern underground alt-rock, Ten Kens offer up a variety of imploding, wired styles. There’s a whole collision of ideas and it seems that Ten Kens are looking for the exact point where brutal sounds can be considered to be refined - that they hop to either side of this fine line so easily, is an exciting spectacle.” - The Electric Circus

"Excellently skewed, arty rock, like Sonic Youth and Liars colliding.” - NME

"Thoroughly engaging and distinctive stuff that brims with freshness and cracked ingenuity. Ten Kens are eager students of the lo-fi rumble, the fuzzy wall-of-guitar noise and the subtly obtuse melody.” - Classic Rock Magazine

“Ten Kens layers on the noise thick and heavy, awash with walls of sound so massive they make you forget there's a man singing so, so softly under it all. Ten Kens will take you to the moon if you let them." - Daily Nebraskan

"I don't listen to much guitar music these days. If I do, it'll be old faves - Fugazi, Sonic Youth, or The Clash. But I think Ten Kens have just found themselves a little place amongst that elite." - Music Musings And Miscellany

"Sometimes you throw everything into your efforts. To adhere to the cliches: the blood, sweat and tears, even the kitchen sink. Sometimes the result is a mess but occasionally, you can end up with a masterpiece. - The Music Fix

"Wonderfully abstract and eclectic. Every element is stunning and arguably groundbreaking...although it's not for the faint-hearted or narrow minded." - Electric Ghost

"Loud is definitely the word of the hour. It’s reasonable to ask the question of whether the band are in fact the new Pixies, such is the riffage they produce and the range that Workman’s pipes can cover." - Muso's Guide

"Ten Kens cavernous songs are massively rewarding when explored thoroughly by those with no problems with enclosed spaces. It could just be that they managed to create their own masterpiece.” - Music OMH

"Toronto four-piece employ many of the same tricks that the likes of Slint and Chavez exploited in the early 90s, they’ve fortunately messed with the formulae, throwing in healthy doses of hardcore, post-punk and even goth. This ensures that they still remain excitingly challenging." - BBC Music

"The thinking man's stoner rock: thrilling and brutal, but pumped full of the kind of smudged melodies beloved of Brian Wilson...a vicious, rousing success." - Artrocker Magazine

“Ten Kens display an uncommon knack for lulling the listener into a false sense of security before veering off for the final third, ensuring a voyage of discovery proves fulfilling for both creator and consumer. An audacious triumph in the face of adversity.” - Drowned In Sound

"The duo of Brett Paulin and Dan Workman get exceptionally dark this time around. From the album opener ‘Death In The Family’, you can hear the ill-intentions. With any album that relies on these sorts of intense, extreme feelings Namesake needs the listener to be in the proper mood to receive the songs in the most effective manner. It’s difficult to imagine oneself being in that appropriate mood for any prolonged period of time. If you are, you need to seek some emotional help.” - Snob's Music

"Toronto based psychedelic / atmospheric rock band Ten Kens makes a name for itself with their album Namesake. With almost Explosions In The Sky style buildups, their repetitive but hypnotizing riffs and occasional bell rings draw you in and throw you right into the fray of the next mind-altering song. Namesake is without a doubt, one of the best albums of 2012.” - Earbuddy

"Transitioning between beautiful, sprawling, guitar work and angelically dark vocals, Namesake is everything that cannot be described. The third album by these Canadians bends genres, obliterating every preconceived notion that stood in their path. Tapestries of colorful instrument work backed by the brooding choir-like vocals , drenching everything in an ethereal layer of beauty. Seamlessly, this beautiful innoncence transforms into an infinite pool of darkness. In only three albums, they have reached a pinnacle of music often unattained by many critically acclaimed or long-winded musical endeavors.” - Sputnik Music

"In just ten songs, Ten Kens manage to genre bend, and make each genre sound as good as they’ve sounded before. These songs change from goddamn beautiful to punishing in the blink of an eye. There’s something for everyone to love on Namesake, and they play it all damn near flawlessly.” - Stereo Killer

With their sophomore album coming out at some point in April and an upcoming tour in the U.K., Toronto locals Ten Kens are a busy band. The group shifts between indie rock melodies, noise breakdowns, and Ennio Morricone-style guitar licks with some definite metal influences. Ten Kens seamlessly blend genres together, spitting them back out with an aggressive energetic delivery that draws attention both in concert and in recording. Their darkly melodic experimental indie rock is like finding your grandfather's WWII service knife in a dusty attic: it's sharp and a little bit heavy, with a bit of grunge around the edges. -Tristan Johnston - The Strand

I usually don't start listening to much noise music until the first frost. Our people's crops grow taller that way. But one day this summer, a dreary-looking record by this band I'd never heard of slid across my desk. I loved it. Ten Kens layers on the noise thick and heavy. "For Posterity" is awash with walls of sound so massive they make you forget there's a man singing so, so softly under it all. His vocals are almost like a cry for help from someone buried underneath a mountain of rubble. "For Posterity" is the perfect record to listen to when you're driving around late on a cool summer night. The windows are down, the streets are deserted and you're out of your head. This record will take you to the moon if you let it. But don't take my word for it, there's still a few weeks of summer nights left. Take this one out for a spin.

by Casey Welsch - The Daily Nebraskan

It is said that the amount of studio time that the eponymous Toronto hardcore psychedelic rock act Ten Kens spent on recording their second album was bordering on unhealthy. It was said that they had made the transitions from a magnanimous live act to living, eating and sleeping the production of their music, from dusk till dawn.

Well, it is my pleasure to announce to you that all those hours that this hard working band put into perfecting and honing their craft has not been vain. This is because their second offering ‘For Posterity’ is a fantastic continuation of form and something that is sure to delight their fans. It is also an album that draws in any new listeners to the group, such as myself, and grabs them and refuses to let them go before the last note on the albums rings out.

It is in this spirit and fervour that the album begins and we are treated to a drum solo to start the album with ‘Johnny Ventura’. You can tell Dan Workman and his band mates have been doing their homework on their psychedelic and progressive roots as you can almost be transported back to the early days of Pink Floyd as Dan lets out a Roger Waters-like wail over the thrashing guitar riff which is Ten Ken’s weapon of choice to get their musical message across to the masses. However, this is not to say that this group doesn’t have their mellow times on the record as we are treated to a break from their angst in the middle of the track. Ultimately, this track ceases in the chaotic fashion that it embellished at the start.

‘Back To Benign’ also shows the band taking on the influences of musical history as one can detect a touch of ‘Echo and The Bunnymen’ both in the rhythm and vocal sound. That is a key part of what makes this band so unique. There are no clear lyrics to be heard per say, as they are deep in mix and enshrouded by reverb, but the tones of the vocals is what carries each song.

Without doubt one of the rawest songs on the album is ‘Insignificant Other’. Their limits seem boundless and the band is left to flex their talent to their liking. This freedom is continued in the title track ‘For Posterity’ as both Punk melody and vocals are added to the cauldron to add to the bands relentless impact on the listener.

‘Screaming Viking’ is short and sweet but one of the best on the album. The whole track feels like a war cry and this is emanated from each instrument and voice and surmounts to two and half minutes of pure energy that is very rarely seen these days.

In ‘Summer Camp’, the bass guitar gets thrust centre stage and the vocals get brought out of their dream-like state to the forefront. This ambience is continued on to ‘Grassmaster’ where the music builds up slowly to a crescendo that sounds like many strings were shredded in angst.

In ‘Style Wars’, the longest track on the album, we are treated to a song that is very reminiscent of Oasis but the melody works more on chaos theory than any set structure. This is a track where you can see that the band must whip their followers into a riotous throng when they ply their art live on stage. ‘Hard Sell’ and ‘Welfare Green’ bolster the album with two more powerhouse songs, however the latter displays a slightly more melodious and softer edge that carries on to the end of record.

In my opinion, ‘Yellow Peril’ can definitely be considered one of the best on ‘For Posterity’. It is a tune that works very well in the studio and will certainly be a crowd-pleaser when they tour. It proves that there is more to Ten Kens than punchy riffs, however there is still a touch of this fury at the end. The album ends with the fitting ‘Can Not Be Dark’ and leaves you with the nice feeling that at least there is a band out there that cares about their music that they are willing to sacrifice a lot for in.

Ten Kens may not be everyone’s cup of tea, but you can be rest assured that they will put their heart and soul into every endeavour that they accomplish and will not leave you unhappy.

by Barclay Quarton - Middle Boop

Well, here’s something rarer than a Scottish heatwave – a guitar-based rock quartet worth listening to. Unlike the Three Johns, there aren’t ten of them and none of them are called Ken. Their names are Dan, Brett, Sully and Ryan and they hail from Toronto.

What you don’t get here – bland singalong choruses, anaemic anthems, pompous bluster or songs that are sustained by a single idea. What you do get is a good deal of variety and tempo and mood switches within songs (but not in a look-how-clever-I-am math rock way). It’s impossible to work in this format and be entirely original, but you can take different influences and mash them up together in new ways. There are a lot of bands I hear in their style – The Breeders, 13th Floor Elevators, Drive Like Jehu, Aereogramme, Gallon Drunk, the Ruts to name but a few – but crucially none of their songs can be pinned down to any one overriding influence.

There are a dozen songs, none of which could be described as filler. I’m not going to go through them all, but as a flavour they range from the dark and brooding Back to Benign to the shouty hardcore with inappropriate quiet bits of Grassmaster; from the strange garage-psych atmospherics and punkish riffing of Summer Camp to the Deal Twins go spagh western punk-pop of the title track. Singer Dan Workman has an angelic high tenor that can morph into a throaty scream when called for which often contrasts beautifully with the carnage going on behind him.

If I were choose a single highlight it would be the seven minute epic Style Wars which combines reflective, slightly unnerving psychedelic pop with a martial drum machine and some choice riffing and seems to be haunted throughout by the benign ghost of Rowland S Howard doing what he did best. The final track Can’t Not Be Dark starts quietly before finishing up with some frenzied riffing, but we’ll forgive that cliché because a) it’s about the only cliché on the album, and b) it’s a lot of fun.

I don’t listen to much guitar music these days. If I do, aside from the National, it’ll be old faves – NoMeansNo, Fugazi, Minutemen, Sonic Youth, Throwing Muses, the Replacements or the Clash or even older faves like the 60s San Francisco bands and the Nuggets generation. But I think Ten Kens have just found themselves a little place amongst that elite. - Music Musings and Miscellany

The gritty psych noise of Ten Kens from Toronto will soon be hitting us hard with their second album For Posterity on its way next month (out through Fat Cat Records), and it is a mish-mash of blues, crunching riffage, skin-piercing pummelling drums, and tsunamis of distorted noise, all overlaid by Dan Workman's haunting echoed vocals, recalling The Black Angels' Alex Maas, whilst the band itself evokes a mixture of the stretching and compressing of the psychedelia that The Black Heart Procession have done so well, juxtaposed with sudden blasts of guitar blitzkriegs or elegaic musical interplay. It makes for a listen that ensures you are never likely to settle into a particular soundscape, therefore are kept aurally on your toes. Its very interesting indeed, and if you dont believe me, listen to 2008's self-titled debut and try to deny its excellence - then realise that the newie heightens this. Brooding blues is rarely this loud. - Sonic Masala

One of the few things that I’ve learned in the few months since starting this site is that you probably shoudn’t take too much notice of press releases. Every new album is accompanied by a few paragraphs detailing why said album is the pinnacle of human achievment. That’s not to say, of course, that they don’t serve a purpose. They can be essential when you’re feeling lazy and/or you need to check facts; but blimey they don’t half over do-it sometimes.

Therefore I took it with a pinch of salt when reading the blurb that accompanied the new album from Toronto four-piece Ten Kens. It described the bands second album, For Posterity, as feeling ‘like a spirit haunting the listener with a brooding dread’ – see what I mean? Thankfully though, this time at least, I have to hold my hands up because, as pretensious as that line may sound, it almost perfectly sums up the record.

Apparently the band decided to lock themselves away for large periods of time during the albums recording and it’s certainly helped to create a record that is a genuinely dark and claustrophobic listen from start to finish. Songs such as Back To Benign, Yellow Peril and album closer Can’t Not Be Dark are exactly the kind of raw, epic and, yes, brooding songs you would expect a rock and roll band to make after locking themselves away in a studio for days and nights on end.

That’s not to say that there aren’t moments of light however. Screaming Viking flys along on a killer riff that Queens Of The Stone Age would pay good money for, while Grassmaster is a slice of hardcore which is as immediate and raucous as it is thrilling. Another highlight is the album centre-piece Summercamp. The song plods along on a menacing bassline, a monster riff and some frantic drumming before suddenly taking you by surprise with a wonderful Women-esque guitar breakdown and an almost-spookily female-like vocal from frontman Dan Workman.

By fully throwing themselves in to the recording process Ten Kens have crafted a brilliant and genuinely unique record that is never anything less than compelling. For Posterity can, at times, be almost be stifling in its intensity but there are also moments where it still manages to sound utterly massive. A real triumph indeed.

8/10 - Gold Flake Paint

Following a couple of personnel changes within their ranks the Toronto noiseniks Ten Kens locked themselves away from the world for a number of months to gestate this, For Posterity, their second album, and boy does it sound like it. Loud is definitely the word of the hour here whilst the sense of the frustration born of too much time in each others’ company is palpable throughout, so clearly they fed off the self-imposed studio confinement.

Whilst generally maintaining the clear breadth of influences that characterised their self-titled debut there is though less immediacy about the songs on this album and it’ll take a few listens to bed itself down in the discerning listener’s aural palate. Vocals are more often than not little more than swoops up and down the extent of singer Dan Workman’s range it seems and recognisable words are at a premium. Coupled with many lengthy instrumental passages that morph from proto-psych through to hardcore in the space of a single song and you’re in possession of one of the more challenging albums of the year to date. Third song, ‘Insignificant Other’, is a perfect example of this marrying of genres.

That track though signals the point at which the band’s vision begins to cohere and from then on, after the aforementioned few listens, it’s possible to see what they’re aiming for. By the time the halfway-point tune ‘Summer Camp’ is reached it’s reasonable to ask the question of whether the band are in fact the new Pixies, such is the riffage they produce and the range that Workman’s pipes can cover. ‘Grassmaster’ however is more the illegitimate offspring of This Is Hell coupling with Frightened Rabbit.

‘Style Wars’ takes rather too long to get to wherever it wants to be but things pick up again on ‘Hard Sell’ and from that point on it’s a straight run to the finish. The band have then come up with a distinctly better than average second album and that time spent in enforced proximity to each other has more than paid off. - Muso's Guide

Two things flashed through my mind shortly after hearing the opening bars (and open chord) of “For Posterity”. First, this is pretentious drivel. Second, I’m going to like Ten Kens. The novelty factor looms large. There simply isn’t anything that sounds like “For Posterity” in its totality. Elements are familiar. There’s the prog-rocky experimentalism of the The Mars Volta, which charges in and out of Harcore. Dan Workman occasionally wails like a Thom York having to adapt his sound to appease an Egyptian pharaoh. Frequently the songs breakdown into a chaos of distorted guitars, crashing drums only to resolve themselves in moments of eerie yet perfectly crafted melody. This juxtaposition serves to make those two barely compatible sounds all the more enjoyable.

I perfectly understand that for many this may sound pretentious, but I get sent so much music by so many bands that I delight in anything that bucks the trend – even better if they smash them to smithereens.

Ten Kens have clearly set out to make something unrecognisable, something that listeners will struggle to identify with. The name “For Posterity” (perhaps jokingly) sets the band up as a Van Gogh creating a work of genius – misunderstood and unappreciated in the band’s lifetime, celebrated after their deaths or demise. They’re in danger of needing to change the name, because Ten Kens could (should!) become very popular in the immediate future.

Strongly reminiscent of Joey Santiago’s work with the Pixies, the chameleonic guitar playing is amazing. Workman will play anything bar the obvious. Hard rock riffs that Josh Homme would be proud of swiftly jump to sparse notes and standard tuning hacks. The moments of clarity and astounding melody on “Screaming Viking” and “Summer Camp” are matched by the atomic roars of “Grassmaster” and “Hard Sell”, while Workman sings like a choir boy possessed with the ghost of Frank Black.

Make no mistake this is a hard listen, but “For Posterity” is a superb album – one that keeps challenging, one that keeps giving, and ultimately one of the best of 2010.

4.5/5 - City Lifer

Naming your second album For Posterity could either be an amazing sense of faith in your own abilities or a blundering leap of over confidence. After listening to Ten Kens’ second album you realise that this isn’t some ego centric statement - it’s simply the knowledge that the band have left a marker and now everyone else has to catch up.

Ten Kens, a four piece from Toronto locked themselves away in a studio in late 2009 and, through an overburdening sense of cabin fever, produced a record the defies these cramped, highly pressured conditions to be one of continual musical invention. Each track takes you in unexpected directions. The track before is not an indicator of the next and this is sustained, not just for the first few tracks, but for the whole album. This isn’t to say this is an album of disparate musical styles. There’s a strong adherence to alt rock here. Guitars: tick. Well honed rhythmic base: tick. Alt rock experimentation: tick tick tick. There are plenty of bands out there that are ploughing this furrow; what separates Ten Kens from the herd is in the construction, the writing and the delivery of their songs. There’s a basic, sparse arrangement to these tracks that makes it all about the music. This is the best Steve Albini album that he wasn’t involved in. You don’t pick up a lot of musical references in this album. It’s more Ten Kens than anything else. But occasionally you’re taken back to echoes of vintage Nirvana (In Utero, not Nevermind...).

Sometimes you throw everything into your efforts. To adhere to the cliches: the blood, sweat and tears, even the kitchen sink. Sometimes the result is a mess but occasionally, as with this record, you can end up with a masterpiece. 2010 finally has its stand out record. - 8/10
- The Music Fix

Locking yourself away for long periods of time seems to be quite the thing these days when recording an album. Despite the danger of totally losing your mind in a House of Leaves style, and the very real possibility that any sense of reality and proportion might be lost, such an approach can really pay off. In the case of Ten Kens, it could just be that they managed to create their own masterpiece with For Posterity.

Getting a grip on this album is particularly tricky because it is widely varied in terms of mood, pace, and ideas. There is no doubt that what Ten Kens make is an unholy racket, but to limply describe it as alternative rock would be to do it an enormous disservice. For Posterity may well come equipped with an array of aggressive riffs, hardcore drumming and basslines so heavy they could cause nasal cavities to collapse, but there's so much more going on here.

On the flipside of their frenetic outbursts are some remarkably refined melodic moments which could almost be labelled as straight-up pop. Perhaps the most obvious example of this comes in the form of Summer Camp, which lies at the heart of the album. Sandwiched between white-hot metallic guitar riffs that recall those striated ear-shredders punched out by Big Black is a strange about-face skip through a 1950s Parisian-flavoured dreamscape. Chuck in a few Pixies-inspired outbursts and some almost narcoleptic vocals from the remarkably versatile Dan Workman and you've got a song that shifts and morphs its form constantly. Some might find these changes jarring, but the hazy way in which each change is made makes for a beguiling listen.

More straightforward are the likes of Grassmaster which initially is indebted to the primal scream of Nirvana's more white-knuckle outbursts. However Ten Kens still find time to allude to The Doors, The Addams Family and skiffle before exploding back into a sea of unbridled wrath.

The direct rock of Screaming Viking undulates between intense claustrophobic rushes and brief calming lulls. A heart-pounding breakdown that grows into an unrelenting climax winds the song up in frantic fashion. Elsewhere there are definite nods to the blues, notably on the intro of Yellow Peril, which is awash with reverb and menace. Ever shifting in mood, it becomes something of a terrifying listen. Workman's vocals start out like those of a pre-teen choirboy, morph into a weird cartoon hillbilly drawl, and attain heavenly status for a brief time before detonating into a seething rage - something mirrored by the squealing guitars behind him.

Simply stuffed with ideas from beginning to end, For Posterity is a clever, if occasionally confused and confusing record. However, it's the claustrophobic nature of songs such as Yellow Peril, the menacing certain-to-be-in-a-David-Lynch-movie creep of Back To Benign, and Can't Not Be Dark that define the album. The latter of these three finishes the record in considerable style. Its haunted house atmospherics, squalling guitars, and industrial drums suggest that the recent Swans reformation was perhaps not entirely necessary.

Ten Kens have created a dense and at times dark album. Its mood and construction is not dissimilar to Liars' fantastic Sisterworld, with a smidgen of Shudder To Think thrown in for good measure. This is of course no bad thing, and For Posterity's cavernous songs are massively rewarding when explored thoroughly by those with no problems with enclosed spaces. 4/5

by Sam Shepherd - Music OMH

'For Posterity' is freakishly heavy. Where the band's self-titled debut album was as blurred and chaotic as the kissing figures depicted on its sleeve, their new output sounds haunted. Its sweeping ghosts, however, are busy headbanging: these are mood pieces.

Every element of their composition is clearly deliberated. Every change of pace or shift in gear means something as opposed to fitting into some kind of clinical formula (quiet/loud, slow/fast).

To put it another way, 'For Posterity' is the thinking man's stoner rock: it's thrilling and brutal, but pumped full of the kind of smudged melodies beloved of Brian Wilson. However, any backward-looking aesthetic is stopped from being an album's worth of retro retreading by way of mysterious Americana, which always invokes tradition without ever really sounding dated.

On 'Insignificant Other' this is chillingly accessible, surfy, and fit for absurd dance routines. Meanwhile on 'Grassmaster', their savvy sweetness is replaced with screaming, serving as a prime example of how Ten Kens may not be everyone's cup of skull juice.

There aren't any modern production tweaks, so it's more Uncle Tupelo than Health, and thus probably unsuitable for the bloghouse geeks. Nonetheless, it's a vicious, rousing success. - 4/5

Max Feldman - Artrocker Magazine, Aug/Sept 2010 - Artrocker Magazine

Actually there's only four of them and none are called Ken, but they make a terrifyingly volatile noise, nowhere more so than on the belligerent opener "Bearfight", which crashes about in eternal darkness while searching for Black Sabbath's lost chord. "Downcome Home" degenerates thrillingly into a metal-rockabilly thrash around an insanely speeded-up riff borrowed from "Ghost Riders In The Sky." Weirder and more wonderful yet is the psyched-out voodoo of "Worthless & Oversimplified Ideas" and the frankly unhinged "Whore Of Revelation", which could've been essayed by Black Mountain, whose producer Colin Stewart lends his now customary sense of foreboding. - Nigel Williamson / Uncut Magazine - Uncut Magazine

Toronto's Ten Kens eponymous debut hops out of the cannon tremulously, with frontman Dan Workman's wailing on opener 'Bearfight'; a track that could be classed as anthemic if it wasn't so piercing. A shared love of early nineties alt. rock outfits may have united them, but Ten Kens have also marked out their allegiance to contemporary art-rock mobs. Elsewhere, surf rock ('The Alternate Biker' could have been a Pixies song), sits side by side with more clinical vehemence on 'The Whore Of Revelation'. Using their moniker as a way of distancing themselves from an identity may backfire though, as on the basis of this record, a lot more people are going to know about Ten Kens. - Ciaran Ryan / AU Magazine
8/10 - AU Magazine

Ten Kens is thoroughly engaging and distinctive stuff that brims with freshness and cracked ingenuity. Like a younger, less laconic Sonic Youth with a penchant for brevity over flatulent jamming, Ten Kens are eager students of the lo-fi rumble, the fuzzy wall-of-guitar noise and the subtly obtuse melody, all of which combine on this album to create something that veers from sounding like a less austere Black Heart Procession to the full-throttle jangle of Seamonsters-era Wedding Present. - Dom Lawson / Classic Rock Magazine - Classic Rock Magazine

Widescreen indie rock? From Canada? You can practically hear the Pitchfork staff lubing up for an almighty circle jerk, but in fairness to the Toronto four-piece Ten Kens, they're infinitely better than the U2 idolatry that tag usually implies. Boasting a slightly deranged and resolutely uncommercial edge, tracks such as 'The Alternate Biker' are at various points sinister, violent and utterly unhinged. While its cavernous reverb and classic rock flourishes are immediately familiar, 'Ten Kens' is such a consistently surprising record that its brilliance seems to expand exponentially with every listen. - Joe Marshall / Rock Sound Magazine - Rock Sound Magazine

Twenty years ago, a little band known simply as The Pixies put out an album entitled, Surfer Rosa. Surfer Rosa, as history would tell, played precursor to what would inevitably become an awakening of sorts, a movement that would bring “alternative” music to the ears of many. Surfer Rosa would also inspire another little album: Nevermind by Nirvana.

As we hurtle at breakneck speeds toward the end of our no-longer-new millennial decade, Ten Kens, Canadian alt-rock quartet, bring us full circle with their self-titled debut album and pick up where Surfer Rosa left off, constructing groove-heavy alterna-pop tunes that owe more to artistic merit and song craft than flavor-of-the-month bandwagon schmoozing. They even keep those Steve Albini-flavored snare beats so as to rattle your skull.

As the album plays, it’s evident that the quartet have gained more from early-nineties slacker flannel than mid-millennia hipster denim, though I wouldn't call them "throwbacks." Just hearing the first loud and crunchy guitar notes cut through opening track, Bearfight, it’s refreshingly evident that a categorically indie rock group is offering more than just rehashed 80s post-punk or 60s psych and, for all we know, may be giving us a hopeful glimpse of what’s to come.

Ten Kens possess what The Pixies had going for them: the ability to appeal to the more gentler side of things while fusing pop music with some much-needed volume. Ten Kens are hook-savvy, brilliantly subtle at change-ups and they really capture your attention without making your ears bleed. Downcome Home, with its lonely and melancholy banjo-stringed driven melody, had me from the first few notes. Failing to disappoint as the band plays on, Refined, with its eerie organ weaving through sporadic guitar strums and tom-thumping drumline, throws itself into a desperate garage jam for its climax.

From there, the band goes into simplified garage (Spanish Fly), Kinks-ish jollity (Prodigal Sum), and maddened organ-grinder noise jams (The Whore Of Revelation), adding range to their sound while keeping their identity intact. The album ends with two tracks, Your Kids Will Know, and I Really Hope You Get To Retire, both of which come across as updated Nirvana tracks (Your Kids Will Know is like a better-performed version of If You Must) that emanate that same Cobain degree of angst and isolation.

As cultural cycles persist in coming back around, Ten Kens are the first hint at a return to a nineties/contemporary rockdom. Despite the fact that they will undoubtedly be lumped in with other bands that persist in regurgitating Joy Division, I think it’s safe to say that a new and budding nostalgia may be on the horizon. - Sean Caldwell / No Ripcord
9/10 - No Ripcord

Live Review - ICA, London UK

The Institute Of Contemporary Arts often feels like a naughty little secret on nights like this. Located within spitting distance of Buckingham Palace, tucked just out of Piccadilly Circus colourful and annoying reach, it could well be an exclusive members club run by a cheeky, rebellious princess who has slipped unnoticed through an elaborate underground pathway to open the doors. One can't help but wonder what The Queen would think of the absolute noise going off in her front garden tonight.

Opening proceedings is a band that should be finishing them more often than not in the coming months. Toronto four-piece Ten Kens self-titled debut album is a fine musical introduction by any standard, while playing live they seem to be incredibly well tuned and quite visceral; the sole guitar is really given some room to explore by some weighty and often distorted bass lines, backing vocals pulling off what the (most) annoying member of The Automatic so miserably fails at: screaming to add depth.

A nervous entrance is met with the kind of muted response you'd expect for a support act in an artsy London venue these days, but opening song ‘Bearfight’ is certainly far from inevitable. Building from the ground up–rising and falling between low and loud/dark and light with an extended intro that raises both anticipation and pressure, the album opener is also perfect here. Pulling the microphone to his mouth with arms that are ready to rip the sleeves from his T-shirt, hair popping from underneath a cap like a young Brian Johnson, lead singer Dan Workman is giving the crowd something to think about with an energetic and magnetic presence even before he has sung a note.

While he strikes a power figure, Workman sounds more akin to Josh Homme circa-Kyuss. An angelic quality about his voice that shapes and moulds itself into any musical landscape his band mates muster behind him. And by the time 'Refined' is strutting its funky stuff, the band themselves are really getting into groove. One of the more foot-tapping, hip swinging tracks of the year becomes the angry love child of Nirvana and At The Drive-In. The pounding, pulsating wall of sound moulds the song into a new animal altogether, providing the highlight of the night.

Ten Kens entered with an apologetic and humble hello for a crowd who were only just beginning to wander in. Leaving the stage, following an unashamedly bouncy and cocky rendition of 'Spanish Fly', there was a sense that this was job well done. To come were Sian Alice Group and A Place To Bury Strangers, who both make a fairly nice racket themselves. But there is something far more exciting about their Canadian tour buddies here tonight. - Daniel Clancy / Muso's Guide

- Muso's Guide

Live Review - Metro, London UK

Metro looked quite sorry for itself this evening, the fairy lights suspended from the bar looked half heartened, as Christmas decorations often do, and although I don’t wish to personify what is essentially a nightclub in Oxford street, I couldn’t help but feel that Metro knew its fate, which is, along with The Astoria a few doors down, that of the impending building of Crossrail. You soon may not be able to see London’s most exciting new bands in a charmingly intimate little venue, but will be able to get from Maidenhead to Shenfield in practically no time at all.

Sarcastic overtones and bitterness aside, the crowd is looking fairly laid back tonight, the guys all skinny jeans and brogues popping their lime wedges into their Coronas, and the girls are leathers and leggings all the way. Everyone’s eager to hear what audible delectations will be thrown their direction, but I’m not sure any of them are expecting what happened next.

Ten Kens hail from Canada, a country that has handed us Black Mountain, Broken Social Scene and of course the Arcade Fire. The band kick off with one of their stronger tracks Bearfight, which opens with porcelain-like delicacy and then, just as you’re getting all blissed out and zen-like, gothic guitar chords stab at you distortion and reverb aplenty. In fact, the band’s sound is considerably heavier when experiencing them live, giving the set a certain intensity, which is perfect for this angsty quartet.

Contrast is key to the Ten Kens performance – there are moments of intimacy, with simple atmospheric guitar, haunting melodies that eerily float above the gentle ocean of noise, all carefully considered and gracefully orchestrated. And then quick as a flash there’s filthy guttural guitar playing, apocalyptic drumming and occasionally …rap. Spanish Fly proved to be one of the highlights of the evening. The song may as well have been accompanied by Clint Eastwood and Lee van Cleef staring each other down on stage, the guitar was that spaghetti western.

There is no doubt that Ten Kens are not a band you could second guess, as soon as you think you’ve got them sussed, they’ll slap you in the face with something completely unexpected. It’s also clear there’s a real passion for the music, I hope I’m not doing the boys a great disservice, but they didn’t look as though they cared about whether the check shirt went with the patterned hoodie, their focus was one hundred percent on the sound and thank god it was. - Sup Magazine

Live Review - Nice N' Sleazy's, Glasgow UK

Tonight’s set was opened by Ten Kens, a band with a name sounding like a sentence from a member of The View. The Toronto boys are on their inaugural UK tour supporting A Place To Bury Strangers. I was impressed: these guys play rock music, but their influences come from all over the place, there’s hints of folk, Arcade Fire and early Pixies all mixed in there. With the time changes and augmented chords, this is not your regular 3 chord band. Recently signed to Fatcat and described by the NME as “Excellently skewed, arty rock, like Sonic Youth and Liars colliding”, you’ll be hearing more of this lot. - Julia Gay / Rokbun - Rokbun

Live Review - The Cockpit, Leeds UK

Tonight’s Torontonian support band, Tens Kens, begin by announcing that this is their first tour outside of Canada. The band seem to be enthusiastic about the novelty of playing in a new country, and this is also apparent from their performance. ‘Spanish Fly’ and debut single ‘Bearfight’ are heard amongst the set, with the intensely rhythmic ‘Refined’ and its incredible organ introduction being saved for the last part of the performance. An engaging, distinctive and simply enjoyable show, Ten Kens can’t return soon enough. - Yasmin Prebble / Tasty Fanzine - Tasty Fanzine

Live Review - Metro, London UK

"A Near Perfect Ten"

After releasing what is one of the finest, yet largely overlooked and underrated, albums of the year with their self titled debut effort, Ten Kens have managed to squeeze in a couple of UK dates away from their homeland of Canada. Perhaps it’s a sign that the band are playing this scutty venue in the underbelly of the London music scene that saw very early shows from the likes of Bloc Party, The Libertines and Kings of Leon, or maybe it’s this kind of half empty, piss stained, so-quiet-between-songs-you-feel-scared-to-breath hell hole that Ten Kens are destined for. Hopefully not. Time shall tell. Read on.

First we must all endure a blast of slightly ridiculous bombast from Educated Animals. Led by a singer who may or may not be the love child of Feeder’s Grant Nicholas and ex-Libertine Carl Barat, the band flit between shuffling and coughing nervously between songs and flinging their heads back during their stadium yearning rock pop ballads. Educated Animals sound like the Enemy if only they were concerned with the intricacies of the music of the Killers rather than the hard working plight of being 18 years old. Despite lacking any great originality, owning a pub band image and the charisma of a group of goldfish, this lot are probably exactly the kind of band that the public would lap up and, despite everything said here, they will probably go on to conquer the world.

Eventually the time comes for the headline band and it gradually becomes clear that the bunch of roadies setting up equipment are not actually roadies but are, in fact, “stars” of the night, Ten Kens. It’s with a slight shock that we learn that the singer, the owner of such a delicate and haunting yet powerful vocal range, looks like an American football playing, scary-as-shit nu metaller.

As the guitarist tickles his instrument ever so delicately, creating a tingling feeling throughout the suddenly intrigued and captivated room, the bass and drums eventually come crashing in to what is the set, and album, opener “Bearlight”. This thundering, menacing song broods back and forth, reaching spine chilling climaxes and racing through powerful interludes.

Throughout the set, Ten Kens play off one another with what seems to combine a great flair of improvisation with a solid and tight core. The band create dark, epic songs that meander dangerously from one direction to another without ever losing focus. During the last song, “Refined”, Ten Kens go from an almost playful rhythm to a haunting, Radiohead like interlude before finally, at the gut smacking peak, pummelling their instruments in a dark and heavy climax before, suddenly, it’s all over.

Ten Kens made a good decision tonight in keeping their set short, especially with a lot of the audience appearing unfamiliar with them, as it was with a hard hitting slam of a grunge freakout, rather than a flaky finish, that they bowed out with and the crowd remember. Ten Kens proved tonight that they are a band of incredible talent, especially live and raw, and if there’s any justice in the world, the next few years will see them snowball from understated strength to strength. - It's Not For The Cock