Tempesta Noire – Wolves and cathedrals

This single is called ‘Wolves and cathedrals’ and on the painting on the cover there is indeed a a wolf depicted, amidst the ruins of a a cathedral. I don’t know too much about this German neo-folk act, but I’ve encountered them before on the sampler ‘The Dark Ages’. The band seems to be around for ten years though, but they haven’t made an album yet, only three singles and some compilation appearences. Tempesta Noire consists of Alexis von Poser and Michael Kohl. A very limited box is available at the moment, with all their singles in it and a cd compiling their scattered tracks. But I will have to do it with this single alone, that contains 2 nice folky songs. ‘Wolves and cathedrals’ is rather solemn, with mainly keyboard, violin and drums, and low, grave vocals. Towards the end the song gets faster, the drums heavier, the strings more dominant. The singer is not completely convincing, but there are more vocalists in the neo-folk genre that have to do it without a lot of natural singing talent. Take Tony Wakeford for example, who compensates his lack of vocal skills with a lot of passion. That brings us at the B-side of this single, which contains a cover version of the Sol Invictus classic ‘A ship is burning’. Tony Wakeford himself gave the band permission to release this track, which is not suprising, because it is very well done. Especially the violins and dominant percussion make this cover version a very nice track.

artist: Tempesta Noire
label: Triton
details: 7' single, 2 tracks