Canadian singer-songwriter Shaina Hayes announces third album Take the Case of a Rose, arriving November 13, with the quietly beautiful ‘Tempest’. Written around the feeling of anxiety gathering beneath the surface, the track captures that uneasy space between outward calm and the sense that something is approaching.
Beautiful acoustic guitar and Shaina’s gentle folk vocal initially keep things wonderfully stripped back, with soft percussion, additional instrumentation and backing harmonies gradually filling the space. The arrangement remains restrained throughout, but subtle minor chord changes introduce something more ominous underneath its warmth. Towards the end, rolling drums begin to resemble distant thunder – the threatened storm never fully arrives, but you can feel it somewhere on the horizon.
The lyric visualiser plays beautifully with that contrast, following Shaina as she leisurely pilots a speedboat appropriately named Tempest across a lake, stopping to read, play solitaire and wander along the shore. Bathed in washed-out summer sunshine, everything appears idyllic and relaxed. Much like the song, though, there’s just enough darkness beneath the surface to suggest the weather could change.
