Temples | ||
| Allmusic Biography : British neo-psychedelic band Temples make trippy psychedelic pop that combines the experimental sound of bands like the Move and mid-period Byrds with the classic song craftsmanship of the Beatles. Formed in Kettering, Temples centered around the talents of songwriting duo vocalist/guitarist James Bagshaw and vocalist/bassist Thomas Warmsley. After adding drummer Sam Toms and guitarist/keyboard player Adam Smith to the band, they released their debut single, "Shelter Song," on Heavenly in 2012. After a busy 2013 spent playing shows, recording the album, and releasing two singles ("Colours to Life" in June, "Keep in the Dark" in October), the bands first album, the Bagshaw-produced Sun Structures, was released in early 2014. A steady stream of tour dates around the world, and an unlikely appearance on The Ellen DeGeneres Show, kept the band busy the rest of the year. Near the years end, Heavenly released Sun Restructured, a super-trippy reimagining of the Sun Structures album done by the remix team of Richard Norris and Erol Alkan, aka Beyond the Wizards Sleeve. The band spent the next two years working on their new album and keeping up a steady slate of concert appearances. "Certainty," the first song from their second album, was debuted in late 2015 and featured the addition of synthesizers to their retro-psych sound. Self-produced and written by all four members of the group, Volcano was issued by Fat Possum in March of 2017. | ||
 | Album: 1 of 9 Title: 2013-06-17: Daytrotter Session, 2KHz, London, UK Released: 2013-06-17 Tracks: 5 Duration: 10:26 Scroll: Up Down Top Bottom 25% 50% 75% AlbumCover | 1 Welcome to Daytrotter (?) 2 Sun Structures (05:52) 3 Keep in the Dark (04:34) 4 The Guesser (?) 5 Colours to Life (?) |
 | Album: 2 of 9 Title: Shelter Song E.P. Released: 2013-11-06 Tracks: 5 Duration: 19:31 Scroll: Up Down Top Bottom 25% 50% 75% AlbumCover | 1 Shelter Song (03:10) 2 Prisms (02:56) 3 Colours to Life (05:11) 4 Ankh (04:11) 5 Jewel of Mine Eye (04:03) |
 | Album: 3 of 9 Title: Live in Japan E.P. Released: 2014-02 Tracks: 4 Duration: 18:07 Scroll: Up Down Top Bottom 25% 50% 75% AlbumCover | 1 Prisms (03:09) 2 Keep in the Dark (04:40) 3 Sand Dance (06:07) 4 Shelter Song (04:10) |
 | Album: 4 of 9 Title: Sun Structures Released: 2014-02-10 Tracks: 21 Duration: 1:33:31 Scroll: Up Down Top Bottom 25% 50% 75% Spotify Allmusic AlbumCover | 1 Shelter Song (03:10) 2 Sun Structures (05:13) 3 The Golden Throne (04:10) 4 Keep in the Dark (04:36) 5 Mesmerise (03:42) 6 Move With the Season (05:10) 7 Colours to Life (05:11) 8 A Question Isnt Answered (05:11) 9 The Guesser (04:06) 10 Test of Time (03:53) 11 Sand Dance (06:31) 12 Fragments Light (01:57) 1 Sand Dance (Beyond the Wizards Sleeve Reanimation) (07:04) 2 Keep in the Dark (Beyond the Wizards Sleeve Reanimation) (01:48) 3 Shelter Song (Beyond the Wizards Sleeve Reanimation) (05:47) 4 Sun Structure (Beyond the Wizards Sleeve Reanimation) (02:57) 5 A Question Isnt Answered (Beyond the Wizards Sleeve Reanimation) (05:27) 6 Test of Time (Beyond the Wizards Sleeve Reanimation) (01:57) 7 Golden Throne (Beyond the Wizards Sleeve Reanimation) (06:54) 8 Colours to Life (Beyond the Wizards Sleeve Reanimation) (02:01) 9 Move With the Season (Beyond the Wizards Sleeve Reanimation) (06:44) |
| Sun Structures : Allmusic album Review : Temples are four young lads from Kettering who for all purposes sound like they just popped in from 1967 after a short trip on a paisley-bedecked TARDIS. They dont miss a single sonic trick; from soaring 12-string jangle to backwards-tracked guitars, flowing vocal harmonies, swooning Mellotrons, and baroque organ interludes, they know their musical history like they lived through it. Their 2014 debut, Sun Structures, is a nostalgia trip for sure, while at the same time sounding totally modern too. The bands vocalist/guitarist, James Bagshaw, produced the album and he goes for a sound thats happily mired in the past, but has a cleanly scrubbed punch that gives the album some real power. For example, the drums have a kick that would have been hard to get in 1967 unless you recorded at EMI Studio Two with George Martin at the helm. Bagshaw and the rest of the band also prove to be masterful at layering sounds together, dropping parts in and out for dramatic effect, bringing in surprising bits of flair (like the harp on "Keep in the Dark"), conjuring up impressively diverse guitar tones, and generally making the kind of record bands wish they could have made back then. Many of Temples contemporaries wish they could have made this record too, because not only does it sound amazing, but the songs are like a collection of hit singles mashed together in a 54-minute cavalcade of brilliant melodies, singable choruses, and mesmerizing rhythms. Chief among them is the albums first track, "Shelter Song," which kicks things off in the clouds with a divine melody and some hilariously pretentious but sweet lyrics, and really lets you know right away that the band is doing something special. The rest of the album flows from trippy psych pop ballads ("Move with the Season") to gaily skipping, Donovan-esque rambles ("Keep in the Dark") to hard-as-granite blues stompers with heavy guitars ("A Question Isnt Answered") to poppy tracks that bubble like melted chocolate and have a hard-candy crunch ("Mesmerise") to epic-sounding, slowly unspooling psych jams ("Test of Time") as Temples merrily grab everything from the past that works and effortlessly makes it work for them. The only possible complaint one might have with the record is that everything sounds just right, that its maybe too perfect of a re-creation of the past without enough of their own personality injected into the proceedings. In this case, though, Temples play with enough energy, Bagshaw sings with enough angelically pure emotion, and the overall project flows with enough sonic imagination that they easily avoid the charge. Sun Structures is an impressive debut that would be legendary now if it had been released in 1967; in 2014 its merely the best psych pop around. | ||
 | Album: 5 of 9 Title: Sun Restructured Released: 2014-11-10 Tracks: 9 Duration: 40:41 Scroll: Up Down Top Bottom 25% 50% 75% Spotify AlbumCover | 1 Sand Dance (Beyond the Wizards Sleeve Reanimation) (07:04) 2 Keep in the Dark (Beyond the Wizards Sleeve Reanimation) (01:48) 3 Shelter Song (Beyond the Wizards Sleeve Reanimation) (05:47) 4 Sun Structure (Beyond the Wizards Sleeve Reanimation) (02:57) 5 A Question Isnt Answered (Beyond the Wizards Sleeve Reanimation) (05:27) 6 Test of Time (Beyond the Wizards Sleeve Reanimation) (01:57) 7 Golden Throne (Beyond the Wizards Sleeve Reanimation) (06:54) 8 Colours to Life (Beyond the Wizards Sleeve Reanimation) (02:01) 9 Move With the Season (Beyond the Wizards Sleeve Reanimation) (06:44) |
 | Album: 6 of 9 Title: Live In Brooklyn E.P Released: 2015 Tracks: 4 Duration: 24:34 Scroll: Up Down Top Bottom 25% 50% 75% AlbumCover | 1 Move With the Season (05:20) 2 Sun Structures (06:00) 3 Ankh (04:11) 4 Mesmerise (09:01) |
 | Album: 7 of 9 Title: Mesmerise Live Released: 2016-12-01 Tracks: 4 Duration: 24:31 Scroll: Up Down Top Bottom 25% 50% 75% AlbumCover | 1 Mesmerise (live) (09:01) 2 ANKH (live) (04:15) 3 Move With the Season (live) (05:07) 4 Sun Structures (live) (06:06) |
 | Album: 8 of 9 Title: Volcano Released: 2017-03-03 Tracks: 12 Duration: 48:41 Scroll: Up Down Top Bottom 25% 50% 75% Spotify Allmusic AlbumCover | 1 Certainty (04:24) 2 All Join In (04:02) 3 (I Want To Be Your) Mirror (04:46) 4 Oh! The Saviour (03:45) 5 Born Into the Sunset (04:46) 6 How Would You Like to Go? (03:34) 7 Open Air (04:46) 8 In My Pocket (03:03) 9 Celebration (04:19) 10 Mystery of Pop (03:24) 11 Roman God-Like Man (03:39) 12 Strange or Be Forgotten (04:07) |
| Volcano : Allmusic album Review : With their first album, Sun Structures, Temples tapped into the essence of what makes psychedelic pop so enchanting. The swirling sonic textures filled with chiming guitars and booming basslines, the trippy arrangements and moody melodies...they combined into an aural experience on par with the best psych pop. When it came time to record their second album, Volcano, the band made some changes. This time James Bagshaw split the writing duties with the rest of the band, they moved to a bigger room in his house to record, and they added synthesizers to the array of instruments. The biggest shift isnt anything tangible; its more in the tone and outlook of the record. Sun Structures had the feel of a band whose members were stuck deep in their own heads, making music that echoed the bands they loved. Volcano sounds like an album made to be played on a big stage at an outdoor festival. The sounds have been simplified, the choruses pumped up, and the vocals stripped of the reverb haze they were buried in. The arrangements are still fully colored-in, but they are sharper and less swathed in psych pop mystery. Where a track like Sun Structures "Shelter Song" enveloped the listener in a murky, entrancing embrace that felt personal and somewhat secret, the songs on Volcano are destined to be sung along to at top volume by strangers in a field. Thats not an intrinsically bad thing, but it does mean that listening to Volcano is a very different kind of experience. The synthesizers on the opening track, "Certainty," see to that right away, and the coldness that they bring to the mix is in direct contrast with the expansive 12-string electric guitar sound that dominated Sun Structures. That being said, there are still many good things to be found on Volcano. The band still has a way with a hook -- the synth parts on "Certainty" are liable to be an unshakeable earworm after one spin -- and the songs occasionally take flight on waves of synths and guitars, especially on the back half of the record when the band gets a second wind. "Open Air" and "In My Pocket" have the uptempo strum and strut the Cure had at their stadium rock peak during the late 80s, "Mystery of Pop" suggests what Ratatat might have sounded like if they were huge Left Banke fans, and "Roman God-like Man" has a nicely chugging rhythm that bursts into some sweet harmony guitar leads. These tracks dont sound much like Sun Structures either, but thanks to the injection of energy and drive, they turn out better than some of the leaden tracks that weigh down the albums first half. It makes for a disjointed record thats definitely not Sun Structures II, but something transitional instead. Fans of the first album may be disappointed by the changes, especially since the band takes most of the psych out of its pop. Those who stick around will find that Volcano is a pretty good modern pop record. | ||
 | Album: 9 of 9 Title: Hot Motion Released: 2019-09-27 Tracks: 11 Duration: 00:00 Scroll: Up Down Top Bottom 25% 50% 75% Spotify AlbumCover | 1 Hot Motion (?) 2 You’re Either On Something (?) 3 Holy Horses (?) 4 The Howl (?) 5 Context (?) 6 The Beam (?) 7 Not Quite The Same (?) 8 Atomise (?) 9 It’s All Coming Out (?) 10 Step Down (?) 11 Monuments (?) |