Noel Gallagher of Oasis, squinting recently at the bounteous musical landscape, dubbed the new Kettering-based quartet Temples "the best new band in Britain." If you've read anything about Temples, you've likely this already absorbed this fact. That is because—and forgive the bluntness—Noel Gallagher's endorsement is easily the most remarkable thing about Temples, who offer a studious recreation of psychedelic rock so devoid of an individual personality that the only way to discuss them is to check off the high-profile industry legends who have endorsed them and the legendary records they crib from.
This sounds harsh and damning, but Sun Structures is not a bad album. Singer/bassist Thomas Warmsley and guitarist/vocalist James Bagshaw, the leading forces behind the group, come by their obsessions honestly, which, when it comes to influences, is the only thing that matters: They talk about their love of the Byrds, the Nazz, and Marc Bolan in interviews with intelligence and feeling, and Sun Structures reproduces the sounds of its era with a painstaking, granular attention to detail. If you were inclined, you could isolate every snare crack and background "ahh" and source it right back to a specific two-second snatch of a classic psych record.
Which also points to why it's difficult to feel invested in Temples: This is pretty much all you can do with Sun Structures. There is nothing here to absorb about psychedelic music that Temples haven't already absorbed for you, and without imparting their own ideas. They are Tame Impala minus the sneaky modernizing touches, Foxygen sapped of irreverence. There are moments to admire on Sun Structures, but very little to remember and less to love: "Shelter Song" has pretty good chorus motion, in the way you might appreciate how two pieces of a modular shelving unit snap in place. "Keep in the Dark" is a good, strong T. Rex pop-rock tune, easily the most memorable four and a half minutes of Sun Structures' hour-long running time. And the keening, glassy guitar riff on "Mesmerise" is one of the few moments where Temples channel something close to actual euphoria. Euphoria should always be a byproduct of good psychedelic music; if it's missing, you should check the dosage.
Temples are phenomenally successful for a fledgling band. They've already notched opening slots for Suede, Kasabian, the Rolling Stones. Given their mastery of sound and the strength of their execution on Sun Structures, it's easy to imagine bigger successes in the future—awards-show slots, tribute shows, commercial syncs. But when you're operating within a strict template, you have to find some distinctive way to fill it out—a felicitous phrasing here, an unexpected chord change there. Without those elements, there's little on Sun Structures to remind you that you are, in fact, listening to a new band called Temples.
