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! 

Secret Rule - Machination

Secret Rule, a group of three Italians, a Dutchman and a Finn, came to my attention trough previously mentioned Finn, who is one of my favorite musicians. Henrik Klingenberg of Sonata Arctica (did we expect anything else?)

Famous Dutch person on this line up is Sander Zoer (Ex-Delain), and it’s up to those well known names, along with the characteristic vocals of Angela Di Vincenzo to bring the still fairly unknown Secret Rule to new heights.  And also up tot their second album, that’s now awaiting to be played on my Itunes; Machination

Though I can probably name quite some bands that Secret Rule obviously draws their inspiration from, they are certainly not a copycat of anyone, and keep on doing their own thing. This is thanks to Angela, who has her own distinct style of singing. Notable though are the Amaranthe/Nemesea-ish ‘modern’ elements that continue to show up, and with that the genre of what is apparently now known and ‘modern female fronted metal’ gains a new addition to it’s list of top artists, but now one that actually knows how to make some real noise. Still they manage to apply those elements in quite a unique way. Like the quirky bits in Your Trap that – ironically enough – contain some trappy vibes. (for all you uncultured swine’s who never ventured beyond metal genre’s, trap is a sub genre of hiphop/rap.)

Talking about irony: I find it quite funny that a song called Foolish Daisy contains the darkest grunts we have heard with Secret Rule so far. Talking about contrast!

Throughout the album there is this dark vibe that I somehow cannot really place.  The first couple of songs have sort of a generic feel, but with the coming of the song Dolls this vibe takes more and more center stage (as well as – finally – Henkka’s characteristic style of playing)

There isn’t really a long epic song on this album, but The Image comes tantalizingly close to that epic feel that is required of such a song. Especially in this track, Angela shows of everything here voice has to offer and so this song is now marked as my favorite of the whole album. Though really interesting and entertaining, this album is one that you can’t and actually don’t have to say much about. A typical case of where the music speaks for itself and in all its down-to-earth feel still comes across as pretty damn sweet!

No song is the same and this rapidly makes Machination a rollercoaster of styles and makes the feeling as a whole a bit hard to grasp. Even more reason to replay this album quite more often and let everything pass my ears once more.

Still this is a pretty great album al together, but I do think that I do the songs more justice by listening to them individually. So I’ll put it in my playlist and then I let myself be surprised by all the hidden gems that Secret Rule has scattered across the album, because I’m sure to find quite some of those! 

Interview with Mark Jansen from Epica

Original interview on https://www.wingsofdeath.net/Epica-The-Holographic-Principle-interview-met-Mark-Jansen

It’s Saturday July the second, and in the heart of a rainy and windy Amsterdam I’m meeting with Epica’s guitar player Mark Jansen in the Amsterdam Tower. We’re going to talk about their new album that is due to be released on September 30^th: “The Holographic Principle”, and about where Epica stands in life, after all those years of success.

What’s the general idea behind the new album, “The Holographic Principle”, when it comes to theme?

Mark: Well, if you look at the theme, it’s mainly about virtual reality. When you put on that mask and enter yourself in a totally different world. That technology is not perfected yet, but in near future, when you put on your VR mask, you don’t know if you are in this world or the other. You can make what you want of it, once the technology becomes good enough. And then you realize when you feel the same in that world as in this one, that this isn’t real either. This is also all an illusion. And that was the main point from which we started writing the lyrics.

 It reminds me of the Anime series Sword Art Online. That’s about the same principle, that people are getting stuck in this virtual reality game, of which there is no escape.

Mark: Yeah, I was wondering that myself. Once the technology for that is here, that you get stuck in it and you don’t know how to get out. That would be something!

You used a real time orchestra while recording this album, instead of audio samples. But that’s not entirely a first timer for you, because you also re-recorded “The Phantom Agony” with an orchestra in real time for the “We Will Take You With Us” DVD?

Mark: “That was just a small orchestra, with some violins and such. But this time we have the whole shebang, with horns, woodworks, percussions, sitar and all that. At the “We Will Take You With Us” DVD we also had just a small choir.”

Yeah, that’s right. I did find it impressive, that even with the small choir and orchestra that you had, you still produced quite a sound. When you listen to that CD you really think, am I listening to the whole London Symphony Orchestra or something or is it just a few musicians? And then you see the DVD where just a few people make up the orchestra, you think, all right! That’s nicely done!

Mark: Yeah even with just a few people you can create beautiful things.

Epica always had a thing with big sounding titles, like “The Quantum Enigma”, “Victims of Contingincy”, “Requiem for the Indifferent”, etc. I frequently had to grab my dictionary to figure those out. How has this become a thing for you? Is Epica’s motto: the bigger the name, the bigger the music?

Mark: “Well, no it just happens. I like messing around with words, also in Dutch. And sometimes you find a nice word in Dutch and then you look it up in English. Because sometimes you can’t remember what the English word for something is. I have quite a vocabulary in Dutch, and also in English, but the difficult words in Dutch, people often don’t know the English words for them, because Dutch people simply don’t know the difficult words in one language or another. But I like playing with difficult words. I like language. I like writing. And with uncommon words you often can describe things in a much more beautiful way. A lot of writers work that way, and I try that in English as well. But it becomes a bit harder because it’s not my mother tongue. Sometimes I also forget, when I finished a lyric, I look at it and think: what’s that word again? (laughs)

I found there was quite a difference between “Requiem for the Indifferent” and “The Quantum Enigma”. The first one was pretty dark, gloomy and heavy and – in my perspective – not too easy to digest, but the latter was a lot lighter and merrier. What is the biggest change between “The Quantum Enigma” and “The Holographic Principle” when it comes to the music?

Mark: I see them as brother and sister. This is a continuation of the previous one. Between “Requiem” and “Quantum” was indeed a big difference. But now the difference became smaller. I think the differences now are more in the details, and that is also because we made use of a live orchestra during the recordings. The guitars are also a bit more prominent in the overall mixing. We worked even harder to make all details fit. We delved in deeper to perfect it this time. It’s more in harmony this time than with the previous two you just mentioned.

I noticed that. I have just listened to a little snippet and I was wondering if you tried a whole new approach this time. But indeed, I hear some of the lighthearted spirit that you had with “The Quantum Enigma” back in this album. And I was already hoping for that, so I am pleased! (laughs)

In the past you did a lot of collaborations with other bands. For example, Simone sings on albums for Kamelot and Sons of Seasons, and you had guest vocals from Roy Khan and Tony Kakko. Are there more of this kind of collaborations awaiting, both in Epica as for you personally?

Mark:  I did quite some guest appearances here and there lately. I try to keep it on an even level so you don’t hear me everywhere though. Don’t want to spoil people too much! But I do pick out the interesting stuff. For example, you hear me on the latest album by 3^rd Machine. Because I knew those guys for a long time already, and I really enjoy their music. Then I also want to seize the opportunity to recommend this album, because a lot of people don’t know this band.

I have to admit, I never heard of them myself.

Mark: I was really impressed by their latest album!  And I also contributed something to Universal Mind Project. These are the two that I am most proud of that I have participated, because I really love their stuff. And well, we have not asked someone for guest vocals ourselves for quite a time. We think it has to contribute something. If a song asks for a duet, we’ll do it, but if we don’t have the feeling that we are missing something, we won’t ask anyone. So now we have left it the way it is.

There are a lot of bands these days that remake their older albums. Were there songs or albums in the past, that you would do completely different now? And can we ever expect a remake of “The Phantom Agony”, for example?

Mark: “The Phantom Agony” has actually been re-released by Transmission two years ago. They still have the rights to that record. So we can do all we want, but we can’t mess with that one. The only good thing is that the albums are available again. This also counts for  “Consign to Oblivion”. But because our current management has kind of a feud going on with Transmission, we didn’t back it up too much. But anyways, those albums are available again. Not that anyone realizes, but I think at least Lords of Metal made a review about it.

Yeah, I was already thinking, I haven’t heard anything about a re-release.

Mark: “And then to think we put quite some work in it! We made all new orchestral versions from songs from “Consign to Oblivion”, as well as “The Phantom Agony”. that appear on the second CD. It became very nice but we don’t really make money out of it.

So more of a fan service?

Mark: Yeah, indeed fan service.

You are a pretty heavy metal band with a lot of classical influences. That’s why I found it quite hilarious when you were announced on the radio for City Rock festival as “Dutch Rock band Eepica.” Now I hear people alternately call you Eepica and Epica (so with short and long E), so which of the two is it? And If you had to describe your music without really mentioning genres, what would it be?

Mark: “Well, it’s Epica with a short E, to begin with. But we are used to being called Eepica in the Netherlands that we don’t even mention it anymore. We know they have good intentions. But how we would call it ourselves – I think symphonic metal. But I don’t think it covers the whole of what we are. I don’t even think there is a word that does.

I hear people calling you gothic metal, or even symphonic death metal, to name a few.

Mark: Yeah, that’s also a possibility. We indeed have a lot of death metal influences. But I wouldn’t call it gothic metal. Gothic used to be a very different thing. Think of bands like Bauhaus or The Cult. And that is something that we don’t relate to at all. At some point people started calling female fronted bands gothic metal, so that became a thing, but I think that has passed. I don’t hear people calling us that anymore.

When you first started I did find quite some Goth influences in your image though. Simone performed in those bat sleeved dresses and all that.

Mark: Yeah! And Coen had these black tapes strapped over his chest and wore mesh shirts. As a band, you are trying things out, and at some point you find your own thing. We were also invited to a lot of gothic festivals, like Wave Gothic Treffen and M’era Luna. On the latter even three times! But for some reason we are not invited there anymore… But I think this is one of Epica’s advantages. We can play almost anywhere. We have a bit of everything in our music so we fit in wherever. If we play on metal festivals with louder bands, we play our heavier songs, and when we play on mainstream festivals, we select our ‘catchy’ songs. And so we always manage to present ourselves well without making too many compromises.

Epica is known as one of the major bands in this genre. You have done gigs with entire orchestras and choirs, have your own festival, Epic Metal Fest, to mention something. Your releases even make the local papers! Can Epica become even bigger, and how do you envision that?

Mark: Apparently it can, but we don’t know how things turn out. But with each album we notice that we become larger, so apparently things are still growing. I have no idea how big a band like us can become here in the Netherlands, because we hardly make any compromises, we create the music that we want, and it becomes even louder rather than softer. So I don’t know how much there is to add. Lots of people said years ago we have reached our top, but we just kept on growing. So apparently we still haven’t reached our peak.

Sky’s the limit, so to speak.

Mark: Yeah, it appears to be!

When you just started, you were strongly influenced by bands like Kamelot and Nightwish, but in the meantime you have grown to be your own thing. What are your influences now, and which aspect of yourselves you would like to see in bands that follow you as an influence?

Mark: What we like to see in bands who follow our work is that you do it with passion. And it doesn’t matter what kind of music you play, but when you take us as an inspiration, this is something you must do. Follow your heart, make the music you want to make, and do so with full determination, because then you will surely make it somewhere. But what are influences are now… I still listen to metal a lot, the bands that I listened to in the past also, like Amorphis and Opeth. Also music that is not metal at all, like Clannad, when I’m in to something mellower. It could be anything, really. There is hardly a genre where everything is bad music. Maybe R&B and hip-hop as an exception there...

Most metalheads don’t seem to like those genres anyway.

Mark: But apart from that I can find something worth listening to in almost every genre. Even Dutch music, like Boudewijn de Groot. He has some great stuff in his music. Each genre has something nice to offer, that I can enjoy. I’m very open-minded for that matter.

Now I’m getting curious, because music wise you seem to like just about anything. You see sometimes that a band takes a side step to a completely different genre. Will this be a thing for Epica one day? That you suddenly write a song with – just to say something – a touch of bluegrass?

Mark: I don’t see that happen very soon. We limit our side steps to the bonus cd’s where we have some fun with acoustic stuff. We can go wild on that. But Epica has to remain Epica. There can’t be all kinds of weird stuff happening all of the sudden that scares people. Honestly, I wouldn’t like it one bit.

I have to express my compliments for that matter. I have learned to know you when “Consign to Oblivion” was just released. But I’ve heard “The Phantom Agony” before that, so I followed you in the correct order, so to speak. But I have to say you always maintained your own thing in all those years. There are so many bands that loose their core a bit as time passes, by trying to please the fans too much, but I don’t see Epica doing that. You just pound your way trough the genre.

Mark: And that’s why I think we still exist. There are so many bands that think that what the fans want will mean their breakthrough. Then suddenly no one wants them anymore, and then they return to their older styles. We just do what we love to do, and that doesn’t mean you have to make entirely different music, because the people still notice that we make music that we back up for the full 100%. When you make music that you don’t agree on, sooner or later you fall flat on your face.

There was indeed sort of a curve going on with Epica’s music. The first album, “The Phantom Agony” had a medieval touch, and then with “Consign to Oblivion” you suddenly involved the whole Mayan culture, and from there on it has been a nice, upward curve, where everything continued naturally. You never lingered in what you originally made, but you keep on hearing that this is Epica.

Mark: We also don’t want to create one “Phantom Agony” after the other. We’ve grown over that phase. But the beauty of it is that our older songs still fit in our setlist without sounding misplaced. It always fits, like a puzzle. And that is a good sign. We can play both old and new songs, and not one song will sound strange. It continues to have a nice flow to it.

Still when you place your first and your last album side by side, you notice a contrast. You hear the progress, but the core has always remained.

Mark: That core will always stay. And we develop ourselves as good as possible with everything else.  

By all means, continue to do so!