interview with Temperence's Marco Pastorino

It’s been only two years since you guys released your first album, and now you have already released your third. Things are going pretty fast for you guys! Is there a specific reason for that or do you just like making albums? It's just about our continuous flow of ideas. Me and Giulio, at this point, have this kind of involvement in what we do that it's a little bit crazy, so we meet sometimes to mix up our ideas and when we think to have a certain amount of material to make it listen to the each other, we close ourselves in the studio 24 hours a day with a few hours break in order to sleep a little bit or eat something. This goes on for some days until we have an album defined at 99% of its entirety. We of course are exhausted after that because it's a process that subtracts energies: we take everything we have inside, maybe created in a range of a few weeks inside of us, we take it out and make it "shine" and this is the result. Up till now you have released an album every year, with Temperance in 2014, Limitless in 2015 and now this one. Are you continuing on this rate or do we have to wait for the next album a bit longer this time? I think not, even though we don't like to force ourselves. We didn't think about a next album to be done in a few months after the first one and the same thing happened with The Earth Embraces Us All. It's all about a natural evolution of things. We have a really wide setlist now, rich of different kind of sounds in order to deal really with a tour or some concerts with different styles in a unique way. With The Earth Embraces Us All you started to do a lot more daring things than in your previous albums. Though both albums were great, they were quite simple and straight to the point. What made you feel the time was right to bring out the big guns this time? Growing up both as people and as musicians, each individual person keeps on with its own personal evolution and the album reflects exactly what we are today. It's an album that is both more introspective and more mature talking about the lyrics, the themes are closer to what we live in our lives. We have this loads of emotions that hit us when we don't expect them and this album unearths tons of shades that maybe have been dozed off before: a lot of melodic openings of particular instruments, the use of choir that are less conventional in the metal field, literally quotes more or less known. There is a lot to offer that we want to give really more. It's like we want to offer our listeners a really rich dish without equal things without falling into the exasperation of course. Temperance is what it is because it combines different genres, with electronic music and melodic metal being the most prominent, but this album had some very quirky surprises. In the songs A Thousand Places and Advice from a Caterpillar we are suddenly surprised with smooth jazz. Because… why not? You said right, "why not?"  A Thousand Places is personally one of those songs with a kind of structure that I would have like to conceive before; maybe that time hasn't  arrived for different reasons or maybe we haven't been ready, but now we are. And all of its aspects fills of emotion each part of the songs and in this case the use of soprano sax was really natural. We have this line of violin with which we wanted to close the opener giving it a clearly romantic and calm cut but then we thought "Why don't we develop more this sequence of notes, giving a new restart with a particular flavour?" and here it was. Instead "Advice From A Canterpillar" is considered by me as the musical insanity by me and Giulio gathered together in an individual song starting from the intro almost like Toto and counterpoints by big band to the verses with this 80s flavour and with that mid tempo, the first choral stop, the anthem restart, the choir and then, as you were saying, the jazz part. You should know that 7-8 minutes song has been written by the two of us in something like 45 minutes in studio in its entirety I mean. If you listen to the pre production of that song, you can already listen to the orchestras, the 10-12 continuous voices. It was an unique experience. I think that we collapsed for exhaustion after finishing this 45 minutes of insanity haha Could you walk us through each song on the new album, explaining the meaning and thoughts behind it, when it comes to both the lyrics and the music. Also in this case, as in Limitless, Chiara wrote the lyrics, except for the ending suite maybe starting from a specific idea or making herself dragged into themes we have already imagined. "A Thousand Places" is like the beginning of a journey through a lot of places, new and emotional ones, where you can find a lot of culture and in this case a lot of music styles. "At The Edge  Space" is about  how each of us could be useful for every cause but not essential if we think about the entirety of the universe  and how it could be something with incomparable dimensions while we are like a tiny point in a little planet in a little galaxy. If you think in this way, you could understand that we fall down day by day for tiny little things. "Unspoken Words", as the title says, is the song in which all of us can be identify in when you can't manage to express what you are feeling inside, not only in personal relationships but also in the artistic way or in the aspirations each of us should have. "Empty Lines" is about those battles, maybe more mental, we can't defeat and we try to make it arise writing a song for example. "Maschere" is maybe the more introspective song, also because of the italian lyrics, and it's about that kind of confusion inside of us that makes us blind about our steps or the started road. "Haze" is about the classic no-day where everything seems not be working, waking up on the wrong foot. "Fragments Of Life" is one of those songs that mantain the same title we used in the preproduction phase, it's a love song through the beautiful moments of life. "Revolution" is becoming one of our  more determined anthem song in our live shows, the lyrics link all of us with a very effective incipit " Advice from A Caterpillar " deals with the story of Alice In Wonderland  through some characters, a lot of atmosphere and this crazy almost insane vision as in Carroll's work. "Change The Rhyme" is about love again underling the fact that the best is yet to come as the seal of our lives where news arrive day by day ready to make our hearts beat. As I was telling before, the last one "Restless Ride" was wrote by Giulio at 100& of its entirety, lyrically talking too, starting from his love for Interstellar and imagining all the humanity ready to take everything and leave for another planet dividing the song in different parts, some more atmospheric and breathtaking and other heavier and more enthralling. I would like to underline for example the quote from the Bible, specifically from The Apocalypse from Giovanni, at the mid of the song. It gives such a theatrical flavour to the song, something between the sacred and the profane. So far you have shared the stage with big artists like Rhapsody, Nightwish, Within Temptation, to name a few.  Which bands or artists would you like to go on tour with next? And who is your favorite band to tour with? Nightwish is one of my favourite bands at the moment of course also with the arrival of Floor Jansen in the band. I have always loved them but now it's like they have reached the top of the top. Talking about real tour, the one with Rhapsody gave us a lot of emotions and experiences that we will keep inside of us. Who would we like to tour with? That's a question no one has ever asked me .I will go against the known names and I will tell you Leprous, for me they are one of the best in the nowadays progressive modern scene. Speaking of which, last June you played on Rock in Roma alongside Nightwish, Epica and Apocalyptica. Those are pretty huge names! Seems to me that Temperance is not that curious little band anymore. Do you feel the same? We are still a little band compared to the band you have mentioned but we want to focus on the present and try to give more and expand our fan base step by step.  We have been existing since 3 years and we had the chance to play almost 100 concerts around Europe and America. I would like to expand more and meet new people in every place thanks to this new album. Is there going to be a The Earth Embraces Us All tour? Yes, we are defining some shows for the next months and we are a very wide planning for 2017. At the moment we have announced  some italian shows, a minitour as headliner in Spain where we are coming back after the lucky gigs with Rhapsody. There will be more dates confirmed in the nearly future. How, do you think, will your musical style develop in the future? It's a very asked question but we don't know which direction we will take with our next works. We don't want to repeat ourselves of course but keep on with our music evolution.  Our basic trademark will remain of course as it's part of us but we don't want to keep out anything. For example, in this "The Earth Embraces Us All" we totally abandoned the growl and scream pars because we simply didn't feel the necessity to insert them at all. Maybe when we will start a hypothetical fourth album, we will be back to our steps and we will use it again. Who knows. This is the beauty of this band, no obligation Any last words for the Dutch fans, and those watching on my youtube channel? Cheers to the guys of Wings of Death and to all of our Dutch friends that have been following us. We can't wait to come to your beautiful places!

Temperance - The Earth Embraces Us All

original review on https://www.wingsofdeath.net/Temperance-The-Earth-Embraces-Us-All

For over two years, Temperance has brightened up my playlist with their fantastic electro-metal sound. Their self- titled debut as well as their second album Limitless keeps on entertaining me. Now the time has come for their third album, and so it appears that Temperance releases a new album every year. This, however, doesn’t affect the quality, as their latest studio wonder The Earth Embraces Us All shows. An album that really fits the description ‘third time’s the charm’, because now Temperance really shows what they are made of, and they shake off the newbie image for good with an album that is filled with fantastical composing, challenging quirks and wonderful melodies.

We open with A Thousand Places, and it lets us know from the off that this album is taking a more serious approach than the previous ones. Where both albums started quite happy-joy-joy-ish, this song has a tense feeling, but despite this change, the atmosphere as a whole stays delightfully recognizable. Up till the last part of the song at least, where the glorious pounding makes way for a jazzy ending. With that added saxophone it almost feels like a sitcom intro. Talking about contrast! One thing is for sure: Temperance’s got balls!

The intro of The Edge of Space is almost exactly the same to Nightwish’ Ghost Love Score choir, but now as an inimitable Temperance version.  Thankfully they do put their own stamp on the rest of the song. An outstanding sing-a-long chorus and lightning speed drums drive this one. Unspoken Words has a folky twist to it, and is the kind of earworm that Temperance is known for. Empty Lines brings out the disco elements and reminds the listener that Temperance has ingenious ways of combining metal and electro.

Maschere is Temperance’s first song sung in Italian, and it’s good that it is, because if the language didn’t change this song would have become more of a standard ‘filler’’. Still, Chiara sounds as lovely as always when singing in her mother tongue, and Maschere becomes a nice, not too shabby song after all.

Haze comes to blow my face off with a sort of trance-core intro, after which the song keeps pounding on with a chorus that is stripped of all excessive elements, but that makes a nice contrast as well. Fragments of Life is a delightful waltzy powerballad, but then again maybe to full of sounds to call it a real ballad. Still, one of the more relaxed songs on the album. It makes me long for a beautiful, small and humble ballad, which Temperance still fails to deliver up till now. Come on guys, you’re Italians, give me some romance!   

Revolution comes with a lyric video, and also invites to sing along loudly. Chiara’s high and full opera vocals are back, and that’s a perk she may use more often, if I had any say in it. An Arabic twist gives the song a boost halfway, and saves it from the ‘standard single material’ judgment.

The first epic on this album is Advice from a Caterpillar (Alice in Wonderland reference?) and sounds delightfully fairytale-like at some points. A violin is put in here and there to give it something extra, and when it comes to atmosphere it kinda goes all over the place.  After a sweet vocalizing part, we are suddenly treated with another smooth-jazz bit – talking about random – but that also flows back in a grandiose manner to good old pounding.

Change the Rhyme is a bittersweet intermezzo ‘reflection of life’ semi-ballad before we really turn our focus to the last epic, The Restless Ride. Well, it sure makes me restless, as it seems to be a collection of smaller songs that has been stuck together.  But it is the parts in between that make this song worthy of the title; fucking epic! Chiara and Marco each take their turn in the vocal department, and we’re sometimes treated with multivocal goodness (always a great thing!), sweet, slower moments with a piano as protagonist and a heavenly piece of choir that makes every hair on my body stand upright. Aside from that piece of musical heaven, it kinda stays a ragtag bunch of elements. This makes the song quite phenomenal, but the big picture is not quite clear because of it. De speed and melody go all over the place, but manage to find their place quite nicely at the end that still gives the song a satisfactory ending.

It may be ‘only’ their third album, but one that forms a milestone for Temperance. It’s a huge leap in the right direction in comparison to the last two, that were already magnificent in their own ways, and The Earth Embraces Us All does provide a really high standard for whatever this band is up to in the future. This is really their best record so far, but there is still space to exceed it, though they will have to give it a whole lot to achieve that.

Temperence, I congratulate you, The Earth Embraces Us All, is for now, an astounding record!