Band : Tempestt

Album title : Bring 'Em On

Label : Metal Heaven

Distributor : Rough Trade

Release date : 28/03/2008

Release : CD

With Tempestt, German based label Metal Heaven have secured themselves a deal with Säo Paulo, Brazil based Heavy/ Progressive Rock/ Metal act.

Seems that for a history of this band we have to look back to the '90s, when the band's hometown was not yet featured on the callendar of the many Rock and Metal bands which were later to grace the town's bigger stages, a time when Internet was still crawlingly slow in Brazil as a whole. A time when many talents came to gather under the poorly illuminated stages of Sâo Paulo. One of those talents being Tempestt, who started their career playing covers from the likes of Journey, Kansas, Europe, Queen, Bon Jovi, and Dream Theater. Big shoes to fill? Well, apparently the young act (currently comprising lead singer BJ , guitarist Gustavo Barros - who replaced Leo Mancini quite recently, in August 2004 -, bassist Paulo Soza , and drummer Edu Cominato) soon got themselves an army of admirors, got to be chosen to support Billy Sheehan during a concert in their city, and were hand-picked by Jeff Scott Soto to be his support band while on tour in Brazil.

The boys eventually came up with their compositions, finding support in the fact that they'd been playing together for so long. Their songs contain both a simplicity in overall melodies (the Heavy Rock side of their music), and a complexity in underneath technique (the ProgMetal side of it). Ties with Soto were apparently close enough to get him to sing a duet on the track "Insanity Desire", and he also invited the band to support him on a European tour which started on March 1 st . Which is quíte ahead of the album's European release schedule, but then again it WILL help album sales considerably, I guess, because what these Brazilean guys deliver is truly top quality, and it's not surprising Soto associated himself with the band the way he did! Check it out for yourselves by surfing to myspace.com/tempesttbrazil, where you'll find no less than 4 mp3-files of tracks off this album, including the track involving Soto . Apparently another guest on the album is former Shamaan and current Henceforth & Andre Matos guitarist Hugo Mariuti, but I was unable to find out on which song(s) that is.

At first, with the album title and artwork, I wasn't   sure about the band's lyrical intentions (a certain Cristian Rock/ Metal connotation was in the air, you know), but I've found those to be quite "innocent", at least to a degree! If you've seen the band play on their European support tour of Soto (they were at Spirit Of 66 in Verviers, Belgium on March 11th ...and still have a couple of gigs to go to finish March at the time of writing this, but that'll be in Spain), you know what to expect from these youngsters, and you're probably looking out for the day that the album will be available in your local record shop. Personally, I feel this is a band that's definitely worth listening to a couple of times, especially because the hidden qualities of the musicians only come out after several listening sessions. A band to let slowly grow near to your heart, in fact! Oh, and what's so positive for the European buyers is that their version of the album differs somewhat from that which was released in Brazil last year. You see, you get two bonus tracks in "Higher (I Can Land)" and "Don't Stop Believin'"...the latter being a cover of Journey's anthemic hit, prooving the much more just what these guys are worth!

88/100

Tony.