Customer Reviews

15th Anniversary Collection

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"Writing about music is like dancing about architecture"

Before getting to the music, some comments on the packaging/artwork. The 3 CDs and booklet are housed in a cardboard box. The box has a beautiful carving on the cover, very classy and subtle. There is a small booklet included with some nice photos of various incarnations of the band. There's also an excellent essay on the band by Anil Prasad which includes some good quotes from Lief Sorbye and Michael Mullen. Each of the discs is housed in it's own jewel case with complete details of the disc's contents in the appropriate CD booklet. Extremely nice effect on each of the 3 CDs booklets, where they are individually color coded, and have the cover photo in a single color and done almost as a faded photo (I can't explain this very well, but it's very cool).

Overall the sound is amazing, given so many different sources, locations, time periods, and bands, it sounds very consistent. An excellent job of mastering and mixing. Of the 47 tracks, 7 are from the "Celltic Rock" cassette, 3 are from the "Bootleg" CD, and 2 are from the "Sunken Treasures" CD. The other 35 tracks are unreleased alternate takes, radio and live recordings.

The first disc "STUDIO"

This disc opens with the brand new recording of "Masters Of War". The band sounds great, good arrangement, well performed, with an excellent "feel". You get the feeling that the band really is behind the meaning of the song and put forth their best on the recording. The next few tracks "Dance Of the Third Leg", "One Last Cold Kiss", "The Creel", "Same Side Of The Fence" show the early versions of the band to good effect. The next track "Toss The Feathers" introduces the fiddle into the band, very cool previously unreleased track. Early sign of how the band would develop.

The next two tracks, "Queen Of Argyll" and "Milligan's Fancy" are early versions of songs that would develop over the years, but what's amazing is how good these versions from 1989 are. The next track, "Handsome Molly", is a song I'm not particularly fond of, and this version which borders on country & western leaves me cold. I'm sure others will find it a highlight.

The set now jumps forward to more recent alternate takes: 2000's "Between Us", and 2003's "Coalminers'". "Between Us" is a beautiful acoustic duet of Lief and Todd Evans. I think this version is even better than the heavily over dubbed version on "Balance". "Coalminers'" gets the addition of Rob Berry's (producer) drum program. It's an interesting experiment, but doesn't beat the version on "Shapeshifter".

The rest of the disc is more rarities from "Celtic Rock" ("Cat In The Corner", "The Barrow Man", Black Jack Davy", and "Winding Road') and "Sunken Treasures" ("Jenny Nettles") plus the previously unreleased Christmas tune; "Three Ships". It's a one off performance and it appears to be played a bit hesitantly, but certainly a rarity worth having.

Overall this disc is not a great overview of the band (it wasn't designed to be), but does show the how good the early versions of the band were., and how powerful the current band is.

The second disc "RADIO"

I love this disc, there's not a bad version on here, the only flaw I can find is the guitar solo in "Heather On The Moor" is rather pedestrian (compared to Ronan's current playing), not bad, just a bit dull in comparison to everything else. I won't go over track by track, but here's some highlights.

There's a couple of tracks here, "For Three Of Us" and "John Barleycorn" which are really the three man version of the Caliban band (Lief Sorbye, Michael Mullen, and Jay Nania). These are excellent tracks and I'm glad Lief put these on, they really show a nice musical interplay between the musicians. The tracks "Baladi" and "Reels On Fire" are just exquisite fun. You can almost hear the band smiling. "As I Roved Out" is another outstanding track which highlights Sue Draheim's fiddle and harmony vocal.

The third disc "STAGE"

Tempest live, exactly the way this band was meant to be heard. I expected this disc to end with the 15th Anniversary Concert tracks, but instead it opens with those tracks. Foolish me, I thought that was as good as it could get.

The disc opens with "Raggle Taggle Gypsy", "The Ballydesmond Set", and "Captain Morgan" by various members of the early line ups. With little rehearsal, these tracks are great, very few mistakes, and extremely dynamic and enthusiastic playing. Next is the new line up from the same show with "The Cruel Brother". This is Ariane Cap's first show, and she performs like she's always been there, a good feel for the material, but enough individuality, to make her presence known. Also of note is the exceptional fiddle work of Michael Mullen. The is only his second performance since rejoining the band, and he is able to play Sue's parts flawlessly. The last track from this show is "STONEHENGE". Nothing more needs to be said, except what a great job by Ronan Carroll (aka Nigel Tufnel).

The next 2 tracks, "Bonden Og Kråka", "The House Carpenter", come from a show in April 1999. Great performances by the band. Although I don't like Tempest's arrangement of "The House Carpenter", Todd Evans does a powerful version. The next track, "On The Road" serves (in my opinion) as some relief between "The House carpenter" and the following track "The Soul Cages". "On The Road" reminds me of the old tune, "London River". Not a bad track, but also not a strong track.

"The Soul cages" is even stronger than on "Turn Of The Wheel", it also benefits from the stripped down nature of this acoustic live versus studio version. The next track is also an acoustic track from the Freight and Salvage show, "A Kiss In The Morning Early". Great guitar part by Dave Parnall.

The last 4 tracks, "Tamosher", "Green Grow The Rashes", "Top Of The Hill", "The Karfluki Set", are from the 2003 Philadelphia Folk Festival. The energy has been building throughout this disc, these 4 tracks are really killer tracks. The backbone of the band, Adolfo Lazo, drives these tunes like a man possessed. He and Mark Skowronek play as if they are one person, the rhythm section is that tight. Ronan Carroll and Sue Draheim are brilliant, their playing is dynamic and flawless. Both have that knack of not over playing. Sue's fiddle has a wonderful tone.

Lief Sorbye has managed to surround himself with great musicians who can enable his vision while still retaining their individuality. That is an amazing feat. It is clear from listening to this box set that the band has progressed in many ways. The musical prowess, the maturity of playing has been there since the early days, and only gotten better. Lief's contributions as singer and musician give the band focus. As a singer, he has that rare quality that gets you to believe what he is singing (even though he may be doing the song for the 1,000th time). That's a very rare skill, too many performs let you feel that they are going through the motions, Lief never lets you feel that way. Lief's playing (particularly the double neck mandolin) give the band a unique sound. He has managed to surround himself with great musicians who bring out the best in his playing also.

Any Tempest fan should be required to get this box set, it is a great tribute to Lief and the band.

I first saw Tempest when they opened for Outgrabe at The Starry Plough in Berkeley, many years ago. They were fun, great performers, and had a wonderful fiddle player. I liked them immediately, and bought a CD that night. Over time, that CD has grown to many, and I've come to have very fond feelings for this band. This box set really captures the Tempest sound, and it's a pleasure to add it to my library.