For anyone wondering what the hell Pelican are up to, still rueing the loss of Capricorns or just basically in need of some surging instru-metal to charge up your nervous system, move your heart into your mouth and have you rocking back and forth like some particularly ardent disciple praying at the West Wall, the return of Tempel is a cause for some serious rejoicing.
Following on from 2014’s On The Steps Of The Temple, the Arizona two-piece have once more decided to go far beyond the sum of their parts, write a bunch of riffs that sound like they’ve been working out in some metaphysical but particularly demanding gym and then put them to use on creating five tracks determined to frogmarch you into a transcendent state. The result is The Moon Lit Our Path - due out via Prosthetic Records on June 16 - an album that combines brawn and hopeful, driven-past-the-threshold beauty. Descending The Labyrinth is actually like climbing one of their home state’s peaks to find a glorious Utopia spread out below (where Pink Floyd are jamming blissfully away), the title track comes across like sunlight illuminating the whorl of a strangely stately tornado and Dawn Breaks Over The Ruins combines post-black-metal velocity with soul-uplifiting pastoral passages into a rite of deliverance on both the most human and grandest of scales.
Don’t take our stream of consciousness for it, though, because thanks to the generous souls at Prosthetic we have an exclusive stream of the album in its full, very possibly life-changing grandeur. Prepare for a 52-minute journey of enlightenment and all-round headbanging glory and give yourself to The Moon Lit Our Path below!
Make a pilgrimage to Tempel’s Facebook page here!
And prove you know what’s good for you by pre-ordering The Moon Lit Our Path here!
