Album Review: Temple Fang, Fang Temple
The first outing from Amsterdam’s Temple Fang was the 2020 live album, Live at Merleyn (review here). Recorded in Oct. 2019, it was comprised of two extended pieces that showcased the Netherlands four-piece’s megacosmic psychedelia, a blend of atmospheres conjured through effects, gradual builds and patient craft. At that point, the band had already made an impression on Europe’s festival scene, having featured at Roadburn (review here) as well as Desertfest Belgium and being slated for a slew of subsequently-canceled/postponed 2020 festivals. Fang Temple, a 2LP issued through Right on Mountain and Electric Spark, is something closer to a studio debut, but its root is still in live performance, the band having snuck three sets between lockdown mandates on Dec. 13, 2020, at Db’s in Utrecht, recorded them, and subsequently used those as “basic tracks” to build the rest of the album around. So let us understand immediately, then, that Temple Fang‘s Fang Temple is not a record looking for rigid definition.
While the 79-minute offering from vocalist/guitarist Jevin de Groot (also synth/percussion), bassist/vocalist Dennis Duijnhouwer (also guitar/synth), guitarist/pianist/percussionist Ivy van der Veer and drummer Jasper van den Broeke (since replaced by Egon Loosveldt) approaches what might be considered escape velocity for space rock in the final stretches of 22:15 closer “Not the Skull” — a somewhat shorter rendition of which capped Live at Merleyn as well — stretches like the gentle, minimal, ceremonial beginning of opener “Let it Go/When We Pray” (21:54) aren’t so easily accounted for in terms of style apart from vague catch-alls like progressive or psychedelic. Some of the guitar meandering, underscored by a firm foundation of bass, can be traced back to de Groot and Duijnhouwer‘s work together in the underrated cosmic doom outfit Mühr, but as the first verses in “Let it Go/When We Pray” begin the forward procession of that song’s two-part movement — the shift “Let it Go” to “When We Pray” follows a crescendo solo section and drift-out that happens between minutes 11 and 14 — they set up a passionate vocal delivery in both stretches that becomes an essential part of Fang Temple‘s identity, particularly as “When We Pray” transforms gospel blues into multi-hued celestial worship; the repeated line, “When we trust the hand of god,” arriving as a shared joy rather than an entreaty to conversion.
It is not the first nor the last beautiful moment on Fang Temple. In fact, the album is rife with little-seeming flourishes that might be passed over on one listen while a highlight of the next, whether it’s the percussion backing the Floyd-via-Motorpsycho prog unfurling of “A Strange Place to Land” (18:01) or the jazzy jab of guitar at 5:22 that just seems to have a bit extra behind it than the others around it. No surprise, immersion of the listener is part of the intention, but as with their longform runtimes, Temple Fang are working on a scale of their own — aided by Niek Manders, who recorded the live tracks, and engineer/mixer Sebastiaan van Bijlevet at Galloway Studios in Nijmegen; both also provided “extra instrumentation” — in terms of aesthetic reach, and even if one might drift in and out on the float of guitar interplay from de Groot and van der Veer throughout “A Strange Place to Land,” both the vocals and the rhythm section effectively complement with a hint toward structure, even as elements might come and go, as the drums do after crashing out 13 minutes into the second cut fading way back as the guitars and bass set the plotline for the song’s last linear build, which brings the vocals back as part of the payoff no less engaging than was that of “Let it Go/When We Pray.”
Is that a landing? Not really. Duijnhouwer‘s bass becomes the central piece of “The Knife” (the shortest song at 17:42), but one would still hardly call the proceedings grounded. If anything, bringing the bass more relatively forward allows the initial guitar lines and effects swirls to feel all the more exploratory. “A Strange Place to Land” doesn’t hit the same kind of intensity as “Not the Skull,” but neither is it completely languid, and across its first 10-plus minutes, “The Knife” makes it seem like a rager, and it’s to the band’s credit that even when they begin the louder stretch of their penultimate inclusion, they hold firm to the graceful manner in which their journey began, either on that song or in “Let it Go/When We Pray” nearly an hour earlier. As “The Knife” hits its swell, it remains melodically resonant and light in its swing, not insisting, inviting, ending with a final curiosity of guitar as if to ask if you’re ready yet to go where “Not the Skull” inevitably leads.
And yes, the closer is inevitably about its thrusters-fired breakout in the second half, but that’s not even the only climax in the song, let alone the album surrounding. In a fitting summary of the record proceeding, “Not the Skull” balances its urgency with serenity, and its plotted feel with an improvised, this-is-how-it-happened-this-day-tomorrow-might-be-different sensibility that can be heard in the drums and guitar before it hits its midpoint. Maybe that’s reading into it knowing that it was at least in part recorded live — they are a band aware of narrative and their own ability to set it — but it’s supported as well by the fact that Temple Fang to-date have two releases, “Not the Skull” is on both of them, and it’s changed from one to the next. Further, “Not the Skull” does not neglect the finer details and nuances wrought by the songs before it, and even as the wash gives way to feedback ahead of the fireball about to be launched — have I mentioned that last payoff yet? — the hum feels mindful and no less purposeful than what follows as it relates to Fang Temple as a whole. It must have been quite a show last December.
As to Temple Fang‘s plans to return to touring or festivals or whatnot, I don’t know, but there is no question Fang Temple draws benefit from its methodology. The energy. The substance and the ethereal. The chemistry. They’ll be a different band their next time out, should such a thing happen, but with as much fervency as they deliver these songs, it’s hard to imagine they won’t want to push themselves further.
This album is so good.