TEMPLES | LIVE REVIEW
The Globe, Cardiff, ThurS 6 Mar
Touring on the back of their critically acclaimed debut album Sun Structures, Temples float into Cardiff on a psychedelic cloud, whispering melodic songs of velvet.
With comparisons being made to psychedelic institutions such as 13th Floor Elevators and The Zombies, Temples repackage a certain sense of nostalgia that remarkably seems refreshing within our golden age of repetitive pop. The resurgence of a new wave of British psychedelia has been met with open arms by an ever-growing audience of nostalgic youths looking tremendously hard for ‘the new sound’. And they might just have found it.
Opening acts Dark Bells and Childhood played as a crowd began to swell. By the time the Temples slowly glided onto the stage the Globe was absolutely heaving. James Edward Bagshaw’s trance-inducing vocals carried the show late into the night. Accompanied with a heavier arrangement, compared to their last performance in Cardiff during the Swn Festival, Temples just might be one of the best live bands in this country at the moment.
Glam-tinged songs like Keep In The Dark, Sun Structures and Mesmerise saw the majority of the crowd beginning to join in a softly drunken chorus. The set as a whole was rarely if ever underwhelming, eventually suggesting a new British cult band on the cusp of mainstream success, with precedents from The Smiths to The Horrors.
After they thanked the crowd and laid down their guitars to bounce electronic reverb off one another, the crowd began to chant “we need more, we need more,” and their prayers were answered. Coming back on stage to perform their first single Prisms, the night closed on an electric high.
words JAYDON MARTIN