Temples - Sun Structures

Taking cues from the past and the present like near-contemporaries Hookworms, Goat and Tame Impala, Temples instead bring with them a flag that boasts a reappraisal of quintessential British rock, rather than a shared psychedelic consciousness. There’s a heavy amount of pomp, ceremony and display throughout ‘Sun Structures’, but it never translates as ostentatiousness. The drums give the record its due drama, with debut single ‘Shelter Song’, ‘Colours To Life’ and the title track all sprightly, swooning and mesmeric.

Vocalist James Bagshaw embodies a riddler or a Sphinx (if you will) pursing his rich vocals through transparent melodies and surging rhythms. Album highlight ‘The Guesser’ is a song that could soundtrack 2500 BC, 1969, or 2014, and reveals the timelessness of their influences.

‘Sun Structures” tapestry drifts effortlessly before the ears, presenting a sustained grandeur of their vision, lyrics and musicality. In fact, each track is closer to a suite than a song ,which could have worked against them when you notice the opening five tracks are sequenced together as a singles collection. True, not all the remaining tracks here reach such distinct heights as the opening five, but they’re no filler either. ‘Test of Time’ finds Bagshaw pushing his vocals to a higher boundary than any other track they have recorded to date, whilst ‘Fragment’s Light’ closes the album with the undertones of psych-folk heard in some of the other tracks and perhaps a precursor to their future sound.

Whilst ‘Sun Structures’ blends together their debt to British folk and rock, Temples do it with a consistent and wonted stride. With that in mind, it would have been churlish to expect anything different from them. Like the heady themes on ‘Sun Structures’, Temples appear to be a group still ascending to a brighter sphere.