Italian symphonic power metal band Temperance have dropped their third preview of Arcani, the new Napalm Records album due October 16. “The Tower: Lean Into Fear” is the latest card drawn from the record’s Major Arcana concept, and it is a sharper left turn than the singles that preceded it.
Where earlier Arcani cuts leaned into the band’s familiar mix of soaring choruses and three-voice drama, “The Tower” arrives closer to hard rock: driving riffs up front, less orchestral cushion, and vocalist Kristin Starkey pushing a rawer, more forceful delivery. The band frames it as a new facet of their sound rather than a detour, and the song’s subject matter fits the shift. In tarot, The Tower is the card of upheaval — collapse, shock, and the painful reset that can follow. Starkey’s reading of it is blunt: growth often requires walking straight into the thing you want to avoid.
“‘The Tower’ is one of the more feared cards to draw in a tarot reading,” she said. “It can be summarized as the soul needing to go through great trial and tribulation to grow and flourish. Sometimes the right path is the most painful one, and sometimes we need to lean into that fear to become the best versions of ourselves. We try to avoid these pains, but once one realizes that these pains, scars, and trials are necessary for learning life’s lessons, we flourish. Lean into fear.”
That idea sits at the center of Arcani. The album is not a strict story-cycle, but each of its 13 tracks is tied to a Major Arcana card, from opener “The Fool” through closer “The World.” Guitarist and co-vocalist Marco Pastorino has described the set as a year of work built for the stage: big arrangements, stacked harmonies from the band’s three singers, and production meant to travel. German magazine Rock It! called the record “perfect sounding art of the highest calibre — all killer, no filler.”
Temperance — Starkey, Michele Guaitoli (vocals/piano), Pastorino (guitars/vocals), Luca Negro (bass/vocals), and Marco Sacchetto (drums) — have spent the last several years tightening that multi-vocalist identity on the road, including dates with Tarja Turunen and a global run behind the Hermitage era. Arcani is the next chapter: more personal lyrics, group writing sessions, and a wider mix of moods than a single “symphonic power metal” label usually allows. Alongside the new single sit tracks such as the mid-tempo “Death: Right Before We Die,” the anthemic “The Devil: Sin, Sin, Sin,” the self-referential “Temperance: Forgiveness,” and the Italian-language lift of “The Chariot: Alla Ricerca dell’America.”
Pre-order Arcani here. Formats include digital, CD digipak, a CD set with an instrumental disc, standard black vinyl, and a limited Napalm Shop inkspot black/red gatefold vinyl.
The timing is deliberate. After an October 10 appearance at Austria’s Black Unicorn Festival and Halloween weekend at KAMFEST in Tilburg, Temperance join labelmates Kamelot and Exit Eden on the European leg of Kamelot’s Dark Asylum World Tour, opening November 1 at London’s O2 Shepherd’s Bush Empire and running through Madrid on November 22. Dates and tickets are posted at temperanceband.com/tour.
For a band that has always treated melody as the point rather than the garnish, “The Tower: Lean Into Fear” is a useful warning shot. Arcani still promises the grand hooks Temperance fans expect. It also suggests they are willing to knock a few walls down to get there.
