Sun Structures
Kettering, England’s Temples bring the psychedelic ‘60s to life. Just as the members of XTC once worked as The Dukes of Stratosphear to re-create a psychedelic glow of backward guitars, groovy organs, sitar-like 12-string guitars, thick rumbling basses, and oddly modulating harmonies all wrapped up in fuzztones, Temples now explore those sounds like “Jack Nitzsche on a DIY budget.” That\'s according to group leader and guitarist James Bagshaw, whose home served as the recording studio for *Sun Structures*. Praise from The Smiths’ Johnny Marr and The Soft Machine’s Robert Wyatt indicate they’re on the right track, and lysergic pop songs like “The Golden Throne” and “Mesmerise” illustrate how well this quartet can explore the outer reaches of their minds. Elements of *Nuggets* and *Pebbles* collections and countless late-\'60s lesser-knowns come to life with a dense, modern production that lets Bagshaw and Co. layer the sound with great intricacy. Whether it’s the jam (“Test of Time”) or the milder side of the ride (“Move with the Season”), welcome back to the future again.
“I wrote a song for thee,” frontman James Edward Bagshaw offers on this U.K. band’s debut. As his archaic address implies, Temples play mid-Sixties psych rock at its most archly transporting. Every swirling fuzz tone, cathedral-organ bleat and Harrisonian Rickenbacker run is perfectly placed. There are also shambling echoes of Britain’s Nineties “baggydelic” scene- Jon Doland of Rollingstone
UK rockers Temples' new Sun Structures reproduces the sounds of the psychedelic 1960s era with a painstaking, granular attention to detail. But the recreation is so studious that the album is devoid of individual personality.
They may be subsidising their debut LP with a lot of previously-heard material, but when it's material as good as this, who gives a flying damn?
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.
Psychedelic. There, it’s been said. This record is so unmistakably of the genre and of an era that you can’t avoid the word, but Temples’ hotly tipped debut is by no means dated or lacking innovation. They’ve got rhythm, damn it, by the sandcastle-shaped bucketful.
Dig out your suede jacket and dust off your Beatle boots: Temples and their debut album Sun Structures are dragging the jingly-jangly psychedelic pop sound into 2014, and you need to hear it.
Album review: Temples, 'Sun Structures'. "The sound of ‘60s experimentation smashed stunningly into the present day..."
Temples' note-perfect take on 60s psychedelia is highly entertaining, writes <strong>Ally Carnwath</strong>
Review of Temples' new album "Sun Structures". The album comes out February 11th on Heavenly Recordings/Fat Possum. Temples play Coachella Festival on 4/12.
Temples stick too closely to the psych-rock revival template to allow their undeniable songwriting skills to take off, writes <strong>Tim Jonze</strong>