Perth metal powerhouse Tempest Rising have unleashed the ferociously brutal new song “Awakening”, further solidifying their growing stature promised on previous single “Downfall”.
“Awakening” is a sophisticated and complex song that has all the subtlety of a sledgehammer intertwined with a mass of hooks and swirling harsh and clean vocals that accentuate the underlying malevolence contained within.
Guitarist James Ward-Armstrong sat down with HEAVY during the week to delve deeper into the track.
“We were just looking for… not a different direction… but we wanted to make something super heavy,” he explained of the song. “DJ, the other guitarist, came up with some crushing riffs and out of the couple of songs that we’ve recorded and are releasing its probably the least different. It’s more Tempest Rising and sounds like a Tempest Rising song. With “Downfall” it was a bit more left-field and commercial. The other single we have coming up after this one is probably different again but this is a good glimpse about what we’re about as a band and what we strive to write.”
With the focus seemingly on a new direction, we press James on what exactly that direction is.
“We’re trying to… we were looking for a bit more of a heavy approach but without losing our traits,” he measured. “I guess we were just going through a more refined sound which is naturally progressing as a band. We’ve been together for a long time now so you mature and become better songwriters so we’re really honing to that. We started writing these songs pretty much straight after we released our second album Alter Ego. We didn’t give ourselves any time limit, we just worked on them until we were happy with them. Production-wise as well we went with a different approach and someone new and I think that approach has really complimented the songs and gives them a bit more modern sound I guess you could call it. That’s definitely a step towards the progression we were looking for.”
In the full interview James talks more about “Awakening”, runs us through the next few singles, details the bands missed opportunities due to the pandemic, outlines their plans to make up for lost time and more.
Watch “Awakening” below:
