Temples:
Sun Structures:
Heavenly:
Out Now:
★★★★★★★★★☆
There's something ironic about anticipating an album like this in 2014. With all the cerebrally challenging art-house hipsters wielding analogue synths, busy boring us senseless with vague whispers, sullen grooves and a shit-storm of the banal, we should all be sad-face and, to quote the great Mr Larkin, soppy-stern in these tough times, at least if you believe what the music-press are telling you. Frankly, they can go hang - I'd rather be immersed in some spangly, jangly psychedelic fuzz-pop packed full of melody and imagination.
Which is where the much-anticipated debut-album Sun Structures by Brit-psyche rockers Temples comes in. I could bore the tits off you listing the obvious influences on this aural escape-from-reality - so I will. The Byrds, 13th Floor Elevators, Primal Scream's Sonic Flower Groove, The Dukes of Stratosphear, The Church, Chicory Tip and recent revivalists Tame Impala - they're all here in some veiled form or another, topped off with Temples unworldly ability to craft memorable songs a-plenty. For an entire album. It's almost unprecedented. Heavenly have struck oil with Temples. Patchouli oil.
Right from the start, the single Shelter Song, the title-track and the rousing Golden Throne, set out their stall. The lyrics are pure Alice In Wonderland and herbal tea, shamelessly nonsensical and splendidly trippy, while the music is a tick-list not normally associated with the band's home-town of Kettering - a kaleidoscope of endless sunshine, hazy days and fuzzy riffs a-go-go.
Singer James Bagshaw even sounds like an English gent of a bygone age - no hollering or shouting here, it's all sweetly sung throughout, particularly on the singles Colours To Life and Keep In The Dark, as well as the strident A Question Isn't Answered and, surely a single-in-waiting, The Guesser. One grumble - they've left the best b-side of the decade off of it. Ankh - it's a belter (for now, you'll have to find it on the flip of Colours To Life. Or online, whatever).
The creators of Sun Structures have successfully dipped their quills into an inky past and rewritten the future with the best debut-album of the past few years by a country mile. Suddenly, as half of Britain finds itself eddying away downstream after the ferocious pitch-black weather, the sun has come out. Temples are worth the worship.
Sun Structures:
Heavenly:
Out Now:
★★★★★★★★★☆
Which is where the much-anticipated debut-album Sun Structures by Brit-psyche rockers Temples comes in. I could bore the tits off you listing the obvious influences on this aural escape-from-reality - so I will. The Byrds, 13th Floor Elevators, Primal Scream's Sonic Flower Groove, The Dukes of Stratosphear, The Church, Chicory Tip and recent revivalists Tame Impala - they're all here in some veiled form or another, topped off with Temples unworldly ability to craft memorable songs a-plenty. For an entire album. It's almost unprecedented. Heavenly have struck oil with Temples. Patchouli oil.
Right from the start, the single Shelter Song, the title-track and the rousing Golden Throne, set out their stall. The lyrics are pure Alice In Wonderland and herbal tea, shamelessly nonsensical and splendidly trippy, while the music is a tick-list not normally associated with the band's home-town of Kettering - a kaleidoscope of endless sunshine, hazy days and fuzzy riffs a-go-go.
Singer James Bagshaw even sounds like an English gent of a bygone age - no hollering or shouting here, it's all sweetly sung throughout, particularly on the singles Colours To Life and Keep In The Dark, as well as the strident A Question Isn't Answered and, surely a single-in-waiting, The Guesser. One grumble - they've left the best b-side of the decade off of it. Ankh - it's a belter (for now, you'll have to find it on the flip of Colours To Life. Or online, whatever).
The creators of Sun Structures have successfully dipped their quills into an inky past and rewritten the future with the best debut-album of the past few years by a country mile. Suddenly, as half of Britain finds itself eddying away downstream after the ferocious pitch-black weather, the sun has come out. Temples are worth the worship.