I’ve always known of Tempest. As one of the leading bands in the
\nmovement to fuse rock and traditional Celtic\/European styles of
\nmusic, they show up a lot in the CD collection of pagan and SCA
\n(Society for Creative Anachronism, for the unenlightened) friends
\nof mine. I even have a couple of Tempest discs myself. But I’ll be
\nhonest; they’ve never made as much of an impact on me as other
\nCelt-fusion artists like Rawlins Cross or Great Big Sea. For one
\nreason or another, I didn’t consider myself a Tempest fan.<\/p>\n
Until now.<\/p>\n
Because let me tell you, children, Tempest has put together one
\nheck of a tasty piece of music here.
\nBalance<\/i> is tight, powerful, and fast-paced, an in-your-face
\nwho’s-your-daddy twelve tracks of Celtic fusion that’ll remove
\npaint. This CD should be marked “DANGER: Contains Serious Grooves.
\nCan Cause Jigging And Moshing In The Same Movement.” Lead singer
\nLief Sorbye says it best: “My first love is traditional
\nmusic…{but} I feel in order for it to survive it has to be
\nupdated..”<\/p>\n
Updated indeed. For the first time on this CD, Tempest has
\njuggled the demands of traditional music with the power and majesty
\nof rock and roll perfectly. It’s no wonder the album is called
\nBalance<\/i>.<\/p>\n
The musicianship and production are excellent. Fiddle player Jim
\n“Hurricane” Hurley lights his strings on fire on a regular basis,
\nguitarist Todd Evans plays some pretty complex guitar licks, and
\nthe rest of the band storms on behind them, on key and in time,
\nsort of the musical equivalent of a Viking bad hitting the east
\ncoast of Scotland and looking for the nearest whiskey distillery.
\nTempest is not terribly subtle, though “Between Us” is surprisingly
\ngentle; this is music for your ceili, not for your cotillion.
\n(Thank the gods.)<\/p>\n
Tracks that are worth special mention include the incredible
\n“Dance Of The Sand Witches”, “Battle Mountain Breakdown”, the
\ntraditional tunes “Villemann” and “Captain Ward”, and in a
\ncontender for Oddest Cover Of The Year, a brooding, intense version
\nof Phil Ochs’ anti-capital punishment “Iron Lady”. (Sorbye’s
\nhalf-wistful, half-snarling delivery of the final line of Ochs’
\nvicious lyrics is worth the price of the CD alone.)<\/p>\n
Finally, Tempest has struck a
\nBalance<\/i> they can be pleased with, proud of, and that both
\nkeeps traditional music alive and rocks out like no one’s business.
\nThis is easily one of the best CDs of the year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":26742,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[],"artist":[6086],"rating":[5646],"class_list":["post-39502","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-tempest","rating-rating-a"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/39502","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/18"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=39502"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/39502\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26742"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39502"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39502"},{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=39502"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=39502"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}