Temples ‘Volcano’ album review
written by Conor Graham
Temples are a psychedelic pop rock band from Kettering, England. They released their latest album, Volcano this past March and are currently in the middle of a promotional tour. (read our review Here)
In Volcano the band ventures out of the comfort zone of the pop music format by introducing some elements of Psychedelic Rock, New Wave, and even some Classical music into their songs. But they don’t stray so far as to lose the classic pop song structure and create a structureless, inaccessible piece of music. Instead, Temples dip their toes into these other genres and, by doing so, broaden the scope of their music.
Like most psychedelic rock or psychedelic influenced rock the songs on Volcano attempt to create a feeling of transcendence and with this album, and I think they achieved it. Although not all of the songs on the album take themselves so seriously, like ‘Open Air’, which does have some transcendent moments but is mostly just a fun song or in ‘Certainty’ which has very new wave/post punk melody and at certain points, almost sounds like a sad shoe gazer ballad.
The synthesizers used throughout the album give the songs a breathy quality and Temples spend much of the album playing with and manipulating that quality to integrate that new wave sound into their multi-genre music and to enhance the effect of the composition.
The point of all of this is to say that Volcano is a stylistically dynamic album and each influence that Temples seems to draw from in the assembly of this album allowed the band to express more dynamic emotions.
If anything, Temples could use a little time away from their influences, sonically, to come up with a more unique and personal sound. Although they do some good work blending genres, I don’t feel like they have included any songs on this album that we will later discover have become iconic hits.
Check out Volcano for free for 30 days on Temples’ Soundcloud.
7.5/10
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written by Conor Graham