Tempting Tragedy – Descent into Madness (2010)

Hailing from Canada, today we have Tempting Tragedy, a hard rocking Gothic Metal/Rock band that gives any big name band a run for their money in when it comes to creating catchy tunes of darkness. Having received mostly Black Metal and ‘whatever’-core bands from Canada is refreshing get Tempting Tragedy’s hard-hitting second full-length album “Descent into Madness”.

Opening “Descent into Madness” with the song “Calamities”, we are quickly treated to solid guitar riffing, pounding bass guitar line and vocals very similar to Ville Valo’s hypnotic style. Before you assume that Tempting Tragedy is another H.I.M wannabe clone band, let us tell us you are wrong since while “Calamities” might sound a lot like them, it’s the only song of this album with this nature.

Tempting Tragedy excels in playing Gothic Metal/Rock, and like you would expect it sounds a lot like any good band of the genre. What set’s the band apart in our opinion is that all 11 tracks of “Descent into Madness” are different enough to keep the listener engaged (unlike many Gothic Metal/Rock bands), but they all have a very cohesive feeling allowing the band to develop their sound, and rock at it.

Musically, the band is very solid at crafting simple songs that have very powerful guitar sections (sometimes even heavier than most bands in the genre) and very catchy drum patterns. The bass guitar is always pounding and very nicely mixed with the rest of the elements. The band also has a keyboard player that only provides input on selected instances and allows the whole sound of the band to rely on the vocals/guitars rather than drowning the listener is fancy keyboard arrangements.

Songs like “Ignite” and “Calamities” feature some backing female vocals that complement the music nicely. The majority of the tunes presented in “Descent into Madness” have that traditional Gothic Metal/Rock feel to them that we all know and love about this genre. Other songs like “Insomnia” and “Psychological Warfare” start with crushing Heavy Metal-esque riffs making them a bit different and to have a nice change of pace. In general, all songs in this album are pretty solid and each one has a unique feeling to it, making the whole album flow very easily.

As you can expect, “Descent into Madness” is full of catchy riffs, great vocal harmonies, and very solid songwriting in general. The production is also very professional for a self released album. We can only expect better things for this band in the future, and hopefully they continue to make solid releases. This release is very recommendable for any fan of bands like H.I.M, To/Die/For, Charon, etc.

Release: September 26th, 2010

Country: Canada