Ten

Building upon the success of his 2016 release One Sided War, Stryper front man Michael Sweet returns with his tenth solo studio release aptly titled, "Ten". The album features an all-star guest lineup that includes appearances by, Jeff Loomis of Arch Enemy, Todd La Torre of Queensryche, Andy James, Tracii Guns of LA Guns, Rich Ward of Fozzy, Joel Hoekstra of Whitesnake, Gus G of Firewind, Howie Simon, Ethan Brosh, Marzi Montazeri, Will Hunt of Evanescence, John O'Boyle, Mike Kerr and Ian Raposa of Firstbourne and more. Produced by Michael Sweet, Ten features 12 all new tracks and was recorded and mixed by Danny Bernini at the Spirithouse Recording Studio in North Hampton and was mastered by Alex Saltz. On the subject of guest musicians Michael comments, "There is a different player appearing on every song. It started out where I was just going to have a couple of guest appearances on it, then I decided that it would be really interesting to bring in different players for every song. I started putting names out there and reaching out to people, and they started agreeing to do it. And then I had guys reaching out to me."Regarding the musical direction of the album Michael states, "I'm very excited about this release, there are old-school, straight-ahead metal ideas in the vein of Judas Priest, Dio and Iron Maiden, all the stuff I love listening to!" As for the "Ten" album title, Sweet recently stated, "It's called 'Ten' cause it's my tenth album, and because there is a title track on there about the Ten Commandments - a really powerful song. There's real heavy stuff. It starts kind of smacking you in the face and it ends kicking you in the gut."