At the beginning of 2013 Temples were touted as one of the brightest new hopes of British guitar music, and having signed to Heavenly Records, their first two singles Shelter Song and Colours To Life have caused quite a stir among indie guitar circles.
Tonight the Kettering four-piece who deal in jangling guitars, hypnotic strings, a trance-inducing rhythm section and an ear for a great melody, brought their 21st Century brand of Psychedelia to Manchester’s Deaf Institute.
The ‘Summer of Love’ feeling that was in the air could have been put down to the fact that the gig had fallen on the day of the Summer Solstice, or equally, it could have been down to the fact that a lot of audience members were simply wearing some nice-looking 60’s garments!
Wasn’t Born To Follow from the Easy Rider soundtrack played out as Temples took to the stage at approximately nine-fifteen pm. A line of 15 or more female fans had been resolutely pinned to the front of the stage for at least an hour, determined not to lose their spot while they patiently waited for their new photogenic hippy-heroes to appear.
Singer James Bagshaw sported a corkscrew haircut that both Syd Barrett and Marc Bolan would have been proud of while bassist Thomas Warmsley in hair, coat and bass guitar was reminiscent Byrds bassist Chris Hillman. Temples are that breed of band whose members genuinely seem to gel together both in their look as well as in their music.
Some super-trippy lighting worked wonderfully as Golden Throne opened the set with its melting pot of Indian style drones, Jethro Tull flutes and a Beatles (Revolver-period) rhythm section.
Current single, Colours To Life followed and sounded glorious in its execution as the mind boggled thinking about what producers like Amorphous Androgynous could do with this band. And here is the only difficulty experienced tonight. How to avoid comparing elements of Temples’ sound to classic Psychedelia from bygone eras?
Once you have done that though, and told yourself to simply enjoy the music, you realize that they have a lot more to offer than simply being indebted to their forefathers. They are, in basic terms, are a joy to experience.
As a band Temples magically pull together their influences and mould them into something both contemporary and unique. The overriding difference between Temples in 2013 and the psychedelia of the past lies in their rhythm section which is infinitely heaver than that of their influences.
What they played tonight was not whimsical psychedelia, nor was it 25-minute-guitar-freak-out psychedelia. It was heavy in its rhythm whilst concise in its length. There was no need for any fat-on-the-bones of their music as their well-crafted songs and three part harmonies did all the work. Incidentally, every single song tonight possessed a dynamic chorus that lifted the spirit and produced a rush of positivity.
Prisms and Keep In The Dark showed both English psychedelia and Doors-style-Californian-hippy in Temples cannon and all the while, you could still hear a mass of other influences, which thankfully makes them a very difficult band to pin down.
As Shelter Song closed to a splendid reaction, the realization hits that Temples are, without question, the sort of band you can hang your musical hopes on if you are concerned for the future of British guitar music.
Hopefully, when they return to Manchester in October a debut album will have been released and they will be playing to an audience who knows every lyric, every groove and every little nuance of their wonderful brand of 2013 psychedelia.
Image courtesy The Line of Best Fit via YouTube, with thanks.
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