4/5 Twelve Summoner's tales could be the title...
  by John W. Howell (northern California)
This album marks the beginning of the hunt for the many different countries that will release a Sting album adding unreleased tracks. In this case, Australasia has the extra track "Everybody laughed but you". If you're a collector and you have followed this artist from the Police, you my have found that he has enjoyed releasing great songs as B-sides on 45 issues. Well, that has never stopped. His first solo release lacks the studio release of "Another day" which is only found on the EP release of "Set them free". With his ...Nothing like the sun release, his first single featured "We'll be together" on a cd single 3 inch with a b-side "Conversation with a dog". I imagine someday he will satisfy a recording contract and release a compiled collection of his b-sides, but until then, look out for those foreign releases.

5/5 Don't Lose Faith In In Ten Summoner's Tales
  by Andre S. Grindle (Brewer Maine)
Sting can often be referred to as a guy who spent his solo career up to this point trying to find new ways to be taken as seriously as possible. Well he was but that had it's effect;as wonderful as his jazzy,genre bending pop was at the end up the 80's he came off as more then a little pompous and full of himself. But there's a long journey from the brilliantly open ended The Dream of the Blue Turtles to his previous album to this,the overly serious (even for him) The Soul Cages. And this actually finds him in a very happy place. It's smack at the height of grunge and alt rock's angst ridden popularity and so Sting throws this at us. Everything about this album has a hopeful air about it,from the overly bright yellow cover by a church to the realived tone of the music. This is one of Sting's biggest commercial successess and is often enough described as his go at MOR pop. Fact is it's easy to forget how truly varied and peppy this album can be in between the lines. It's a true example of how a hit single can deceive someone in terms of a given artists direction. Obviously Sting still knows how to start his album off with a bang,the mildly R&B inflected "If I Ever Lose My Faith".Yeah it was kind of dancing around my head through most of 1993 but I enjoyed every minute of it,such a life affirming song and so sincere. The next song though reveals this album's hidden treasure.Aside from some of the hit songs this album largely consists of upbeat,rockier songs with a decidedly R&B bent-far removed from the chilly jazz overtones of some of his earlier work."Love Is Stronger Than Justice","Heavy Cloud No Rain","Saint Augustine In Hell" and "Something The Boy Said" all fit into that basic catagory with themes ranging from humor to irony to any in between.Of course there are the ballads;the big hit "Fields Of Gold",one of Sting's signiture songs along with the unique "Seven Days","It's Probably Me" to the wonderful "Shape Of My Heart"-either it's an anti war song or about inner conflicts but the metaphore of playing cards to a weapon of one sort or another really makes it's point in a fine poetic way."She's Too Good For Me" is the most plucky song here,an rocking almost Police-like ska/blues tune with a mild classical overtone that....well it at least links it to Sting. The final cut was always a personal favorite of mine."Epilogue (Nothing 'Bout Me" really brings it home with a lively horn packed soul rave up where he makes it clear that the media (the apparent figures of this tune) will never learn who he is purely by probing him and cannot get totally inside his head.An obvious statement but delivered with such a wit you can't help but laugh along with him at the irony of the press's approch to him. This album not only totally restored Sting's commercial status but ushered in a very successful phase for him as an artist and performer that....well in one way or another has'nt ebbed to this day. And considering this album has aged a whole lot better then most things from this era,and that it still sounds every bit as enjoyable: that says a lot for his talent and longjevity.

5/5 One of my all-time favorites
  by Darrell Brogdon (Colorado, USA)
Not only one of my all-time favorite albums but, in my opinion, one of Sting's best.

5/5 the sacred geometry of chance
  by David A. Baer (Indianapolis, IN USA)
If he had never played another note, TEN SUMMONER'S TALES would by itself have cemented Sting's stature as one of the late 20th century's premier song writers. The music on this 1994 release still beguiles and satisfies, neither one stingily.

'If I Ever Lose My Faith in You' proves Sting the past master of the oblique love song. He approaches his object in a circling pattern, canvassing all things that might serve as the existential center of the universe but fail to do so before the tenacious matter of his love for this woman. Though the Police hinted at the genre with the mildly obsessive 'I'll Be Watching You' and Sting himself would crown it with 'I'll Still Love You' on the Brand New Day CD, 'Lose My Faith' is the real flower in mature bloom. It is exquisite song-writing, performed unforgettably by what Sting has elsewhere called his 'unschooled tenor'.

Rich, contemplative, plagued (yet again) by the memory of loss, the title track 'Fields of Gold' is among Sting's career-topping tunes. By itself it would established a lesser artist's legacy.

Yet there is uproarious humor here too. `Love is Stronger than Justice' spins its trope of visiting righteous men liberating a Mexican village from its evil overlords around the circumstance that `We only stopped for a few burritos ...' `Seven Days' remains one of my favorite glimpses of Sting's brand of self-deprecating humor. Its tale of pursuit of a woman whose future has also attracted of a rival the singer calls `Neanderthal'. Its turn of phrase captivates from the first line to the last and, so, must be quoted here:

Seven days was all she wrote
A kind of ultimatum note
She gave to me, she gave to me
When I thought the field had cleared
It seems another suit appeared
To challenge me, woe is me
Though I hate to make a choice
My options are decreasing mostly rapidly
Well well see
I don't think shed bluff this time
I really have to make her mine
It's plain to see
It's him or me

Monday, I could wait till Tuesday
If I make up my mind
Wednesday would be fine, Thursday's on my mind
Friday'd give me time, Saturday could wait
But Sunday'd be too late

The fact that he's six feet ten
Might instill fear in other men
But not in me, the mighty flea
Ask if I am mouse or man
The mirror squeaked, away I ran
He'll murder me in time for his tea
Does it bother me at all
My rival is Neanderthal, it makes me think
Perhaps I need a drink
IQ is no problem here
We won't be playing scrabble for her hand I fear
I need that beer

Monday, I could wait till Tuesday
If I make up my mind
Wednesday would be fine, Thursdays on my mind
Friday'd give me time, Saturday could wait
But Sunday'd be too late

Seven days will quickly go
The fact remains, I love her so
Seven days, so many ways
But I cant run away

Monday, I could wait till Tuesday
If I make up my mind
Wednesday would be fine, Thursday's on my mind
Friday'd give me time, Saturday could wait
But Sunday'd be too late
Do I have to tell a story
Of a thousand rainy days since we first met
It's a big enough umbrella
But it's always me that ends up getting wet


With similar staying power, this version of `It's Probably Me' continues to haunt.

Discovering `The Shape of My Heart' is this reviewer's reward for the preparation of these lines. I had somehow missed this gloriously intuitive statement. Although this masterful work walks around naked without the music's clothing, let us risk the embarrassment:

He deals the cards as a meditation
And those he plays never suspect
He doesn't play for the money he wins
He doesn't play for the respect
He deals the cards to find the answer
The sacred geometry of chance
The hidden law of probable outcome
The numbers lead a dance

I know that the spades are the swords of a soldier
I know that the clubs are weapons of war
I know that diamonds mean money for this art
But that's not the shape of my heart

He may play the jack of diamonds
He may lay the queen of spades
He may conceal a king in his hand
While the memory of it fades

I know that the spades are the swords of a soldier
I know that the clubs are weapons of war
I know that diamonds mean money for this art
But that's not the shape of my heart
That's not the shape, the shape of my heart

And if I told you that I loved you
You'd maybe think there's something wrong
I'm not a man of too many faces
The mask I wear is one
Those who speak know nothing
And find out to their cost
Like those who curse their luck in too many places
And those who smile are lost

I know that the spades are the swords of a soldier
I know that the clubs are weapons of war
I know that diamonds mean money for this art
But that's not the shape of my heart
That's not the shape of my heart

This little-known tune is worth the price of the CD here. But there is so much more on this, Sting's fourth solo studio album. Remarkable, enduring artistry, pieces of it available alternatively on the FIELDS OF GOLD anthology.

5/5 Still A Great Album
  by Dale Chavez (Colorado Springs, CO United States)
I bought this album (okay, CD), when it came out and though I haven't listened to it for a few years, I broke it out today, and it's still a fantastic album, all these years later. Seven Days is still my favorite song, primarily because it's in odd-time (5/4), but the band (among the best in the business) makes it sound so simple and catchy.

If you can find it, buy/download/acquire the "making of Ten Summoner's Tale" video/DVD as it's a rare gem that catches these guys playing the album live at Sting's home/castle.

There's also a Ten Summoner's Tale video concert that's extremely rare, but well worth it if you can find it.