There are probably fewer more difficult emotions to experience as an artist than simply not feeling the love. Temples’ fourth album Exotico was an ambitious double, produced by Sean Ono Lennon and saw the quartet relocate to upstate New York for it’s making. But although the Kettering based four piece were confident of it’s charms, the general response from the public was at best muted.
There can be a million reasons for outcomes like that, mostly due to timing or plain bad luck – and Exotico wasn’t a terrible record, just one that probably offered up too much of the band’s glistery psych-pop for one sitting. That said, for the follow up the general sense of meh prompted changes, with a new label, production duties taken back in house and inspiration being derived from mid-90’s rave icons such as Orbital, Prodigy and Massive Attack.
As a result BLISS has more to offer than it’s predecessor, without shredding the band’s formula completely. Where there are still some tie-dye moments as with Megalith’s stomp and the Gregorian chanting at the beginning of Revelations, now they’re tempered with more sympathetic retro dance foundations, with Blue Flame’s story of a disintegrating relationship told over arcing breakbeats. The apex here though is Jaguar, a languid take on Balearic grooves which presumably nails the hybrid aesthetic being searched for. Sometimes throwing it out there and hearing only silence is a cruel kindness; BLISS is Temples antidote to that.
You can read a full review here.
The Voice Of Unreason 