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Tempelheks Premiere New Track; Sign to Cursed Tongue Records for Midnight Mirror LP Due in August

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With vibes right out of classic doom by the likes of Saint VitusTrouble and Reverend Bizarre, Oslo four-piece Tempelheks have inked a deal with Cursed Tongue Records to issue their third album, Midnight Mirror, this coming August. The 10-track/43-minute LP follows on the heels of 2016’s Serpents, Gods and Men, and shows Tempelheks further refining their style with elements of Norse folk and proto-metal along with their traditionalist doom riffing.

Tempelheks Midnight MirrorIt’s a stylistic blend that will be somewhat familiar to doomers who’ve dug into Northern doom before, but to listen to a track like “Prey” — which just happens to be premiering at the bottom of this post — there’s a decent sense of ’70s style shuffle to the proceedings, and especially coming right after the acoustic-based “Tigress” and before the more NWOBHM-affected guitar of “Harem Ritual,” it emphasizes the dynamic at work in the material overall, and the flow Tempelheks are able to conjure throughout these varied tracks.

You can hear some shades of garage doom in “Holy Serpent” and opener “Gates of Python,” but Tempelheks never seem to play all their cards in a single track, even as they move through the folkish “They Hide” toward closer “Slither Did My Queen,” which rounds out with bluesy lead work to cap Midnight Mirror as an album showing Tempelheks as capable of going where they want, when they want, and walking their own path to get there.

Cursed Tongue sent over the following about the signing:

tempelheks cursed tongue records

TEMPELHEKS SIGNS TO CURSED TONGUE RECORDS FOR WORLD WIDE RELEASE OF THEIR THIRD ALBUM ‘MIDNIGHT MIRROR’ IN AUGUST 2018.

Cursed Tongue Records is exhilarated to announce the signing of norse band Tempelheks for a release of their third album entitled ‘Midnight Mirror’ in August 2018.

From the doom streets of Oslo comes a four-headed snake bearing the name Tempelheks. Tempelheks is a psychedelic and occult doom rock experience. Based on the heavy riff of the 70’s, the band experiments with folky and traditional melodies coupled with eerie and mystical vocals. A groovy but hard beat drives the doomed caravan onward.

Originally conceived as a solo project by Martin Horn Sørlie (HS) in 2013 Tempelheks released their debut EP the gritty lo-fi “Red Forest ” which got picked up by a doom/stoner channel on YouTube. The unexpected attention motivated Tempelheks to write their self-titled debut album in 2014. With the debut album, the foundation of the serpent-worshipping cult’s temple was created.

The debut album was picked up by Norwegian underground label Heksekunst Productions. Both “Red Forest EP” and “Tempelheks” were recorded with limited funds and equipment in an old loft in Rælingen, outside of Oslo. The raw, unpolished sound gave the recordings a lot of character and helped build the occult atmosphere of the sound.

By the summer of 2015, a band was assembled and founding member HS was accompanied by Andreas Prestby (drums, percussion), Espen Sande Larsen (bass, backing vocals) and Sindre Øhman (guitar). Work on a new album started, which resulted in “Serpents, Gods and Men” that was released in August of 2016. This was also the first Tempelheks album to be pressed to vinyl. This time the recording sessions took place in a professional studio in Vestby, Norway. Jørn-Arild Grefsrud’s clean and powerful production took the sound in another direction, but still true to the occult and dark atmosphere of the previous releases.

Since then Tempelheks has played concerts through out Norway with bands like Dunbarrow, Horisont, Gravy Jones and Superlynx. Next step is to play abroad where the band looks to tour Scandinavia and northern Europe during fall 2018. Prior to recording their third album Tempelheks regrouped to now include a lineup constituting of HS, Sindre and new members Magnus Bjørnstad (bass & backing vocal) and Håkon Bergh (Drums & percussion).

On ‘Midnight Mirror’ Tempelheks chose to record in the renowned Cederberg studio in Kristiansand, Norway. Here they were accompanied by producer, friend, ex-label-head and vocalist of Dunbarrow; Espen Andersen. The sessions were done live and fast which gave little room for pickiness, over-thinking or compromise. The result was a characteristic, back-to-the roots kind of sound that lean more towards retro-rock than the more metal-fuelled sound of “Serpents, Gods and Men”.

The new album sees Tempelheks streatching out to incorporate a wider sonical range. Midnight Mirror thus span a variety of influences from the darker side of hard rock bringing to front a musical footprint ensured to appeal to fans of contemporary bands such as Uncle Acid, early Kadavar, HEAT, Demon Head and their fellow countrymen in Devil as well as classic acts as Thin Lizzy, Pentagram, King Crimson and Reverend Bizarre.

CTR-010, TEMPELHEKS – ‘MIDNIGHT MIRROR’, official release date: August 2018

TEMPELHEKS is:
Martin Horn Sørlie – Vocal & Guitar
Sindre Øhman – Guitar
Magnus Bjørnstad – Bass & backing vocal
Håkon Bergh – Drums & percussion

Recorded at Cederberg Studio, Kristiansand with Espen Andersen (Dunbarrow)
Mixed by Tempelheks and Espen Andersen
Mastered for vinyl by Tony Reed at HeavyHead Recording Co. (Mos Generator)
All music written and arranged by Tempelheks
All lyrics by Tempelheks, except for lyrics on “Slither Did My Queen” by Vilde Bjørklund
Artwork and layout by Kenneth Larssen Lønning
Additional layout/design by Michael Andresakis

Track listing:

Side A
1. Gates Of Python
2. Bury Your Children
3. The Witch And Her Man
4. Tigress
5. Prey
6. Harem Ritual

Side B
7. Holy Serpent
8. Phantom Messiah
9. They Hide
10. Slither Did My Queen

http://tempelheks.bandcamp.com/
http://www.facebook.com/tempelheks/
https://www.instagram.com/tempelheks

http://cursedtonguerecords.bigcartel.com/
https://www.facebook.com/CursedTongueRecords
https://www.instagram.com/cursedtonguerecords

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