Kettering psychedelic outfit is back with second LP Volcano. A beautiful follow-up to Temples outstanding debut which, though, fails to set a trend as they did in 2013.
Just by watching at all those 20-something guys in vaguely hippie outfits walking in Brighton Lanes or Manchester’s Northern Quarter, you can see how the neo-psych phenomenon has reached its peak, which means i’s not in a creative stage anymore.
Emerging bands claiming to sound ‘psych’ just i virtue of a fuzz ad a delay pedal. Just cliches over cliches.
And it’s a pity, because Temples are extremely gifted musicians. But Volcano sounds gently out of time for 2017 as a Roman copy of a Greek god statue.
Not that I’d argue it is a bad album, on the contrary. We’re talking about some of the best-crafted pop-rock the UK had in years done by one of the coolest bands around with an extraordinaire Canterbury scene-meets-’70s US fashion taste.
They could have moved prog or glam- where the true underground is now moving towards- but they just added disco-remiescent synths and new-wavey beats following Tame Impala trend.
Possibly, in twenty years time- older and posher- e’ll be sitting in front of a record player re-evaluating how good Temples’ secod album was. As said, a true pity because only God knows how much I loved their 2013 debut.
Volcano is available on Heavenly Recordings from March 3rd, 2017.
The Sir's Corner 