Track By Tracks: The Biscuit Merchant - Tempora (2025)

1. Temporal Delusion:

A pensive, tense piano ballad introduces our story. The collective of humanity has come to terms with the futility of their lives. They blame the passage of time and their creators/tormentors, The Celestials, for their plight. They resolve to "reclaim [their] world" somehow.

2. Kill Time:

The music shifts into high gear, with loud guitars, swirling guitar melodies, and aggressive vocals. The humans decide they must assert their dominance over the universe, by destroying time itself. But they haven't decided how to proceed. Musically, this is a much more complete picture of how the album sounds.

3. Victorious:

The humans resort to what they know best: war. They decide to build "the greatest weapon ever made" to destroy the sun, causing a galaxy-collapsing supernova to show their might to the Celestials. Though they possess a slight fear of Celestial retaliation, they remain confident in their mission. The music marches forward with thunderous drums, a powerful chorus, and a cataclysmic breakdown.

4. Judgment Day:

"The weapon failed to exit the atmosphere, delivering its payload to the folks that gave it life." This song is nearly a full-length story in itself. The bomb fell back to Earth, wiping out nearly every form of life on the planet. Only a few humans survive, with the vast majority vaporized by the weapon. The song starts quiet and foreboding, before exploding into a frantic death metal bridge, and finally concluding on an epic, blasting section layered with a choir.

5. Amidakuji:

An intermission, if you will. We're changing perspectives from the humans we've followed so far. This instrumental track harkens back to 80s shred metal, such as the work of Yngwie Malmsteen and Jason Becker. Guitar takes center stage here, though there's also an incredibly emotional bass solo in the middle.

6. Celestial Awakening:

We return to a slower, more thoughtful song. Our new focus is on the very Celestials the humans wish to destroy. We've traveled back in time to before humanity's decision to build its weapon. The Celestials discuss their treatment of the humans. They deliberate about how to proceed, and whether or not they should leave the humans to their devices, or continue their incessant experimentation. Another death metal midsection followed by another heaving breakdown ultimately leads them to stay the course.

7. Uncommon Enemies:

The Celestials learn of the humans' plan to launch a weapon into space. They frantically determine their next move, lamenting the mistakes they've made so far. Musically, this is an outright thrash metal tune. Winding, punishing guitar riffs, featuring an odd-time bridge.

8. Tempora:

The grand finale! Musically, it's all over the place. We start with keyboard-laden melodies, before transitioning into a mid-tempo stomp, where the Celestials vow to "reset the cosmos" after the humans destroyed their home planet. In the bouncy, upbeat bridge, the humans' souls transcend the mortal plane. They express their joy at being freed from their bodies, and realize that this is what they wanted all along. But it's all for naught. The Celestials restoration of time brings the humans back to the beginning of the story, with only faint memories of the events. The music returns to the keyboard-laden metal sound, featuring a soaring guitar solo, before the humans' final cries of "Tempora, Tempora" leading into the end of the record.