Temple Fang The album that (nearly) got lost.
The short version of this story is that yeah, this is the first recorded studio album by the band Temple Fang and it sounds fuckin' awesome.
However, the story runs much deeper than this being just a debut album. If you want to hear a story about persistence, going off the beaten path, getting stuck, and nearly losing everything accomplished, then just read on. This album has quite a fascinating story. As the title already implies, it almost did not see the light of day.
When Temple Fang started thinking about recording a studio album, the story so far was already very remarkable. From the first show supporting Lonely Kamel to their last gig with Mondo Generator, right before the whole world got in lock-down. Performing at Into The Void, Roadburn, Desert Fest Antwerp, Fortarock, Sonic Whip, and numerous club shows in between, all without a single note recorded in the studio. No album, no video clips, and no record label behind them. They did it all on their own strength and terms. As fans and friends were increasingly putting pressure on the band to record and release an album, the band decided to release a live album as their first official recorded output.
At the start of 2020, Temple Fang seemed on an unstoppable rise. With more gigs and the release of their live album on the horizon, the future looked bright. Then the world stopped spinning. Gigs were either postponed or canceled entirely, but the band did manage to accomplish something truly amazing. Their live album "Live at the Merlyn" sold out on Bandcamp within a week!
That gave them the confidence needed to start working on a proper studio album. The band worked out a plan. They would play and record several shows in the fall/winter of 2020 and use those as reference material for what songs to put on the album. They made plans to record the album in the spring of 2021. It seemed like a solid plan until The Netherlands was forced into another lock-down, causing most of those planned shows to be postponed or canceled. On top of that, they also lost their drummer. For a band that heavily relies on the interaction between its members, it wasn't just a simple case of finding a new drummer and continue, and what to do with the booked studio time?
Producer Sebastiaan van Bijlevelt asked for the tapes of the three recorded reference shows, intending to make another live album out of those. The band reluctantly gave him the tapes but he was not too keen on mixing another live album. After hearing those tapes, Sebastion came with a new proposal. He offered to use the tapes as the framework for their first studio album and have the band use the studio time to record and add parts on top of that frame. In some kind of Frankenstein fashion, only done before by giants like Frank Zappa, the band started recording and adding to the base tracks that were recorded live in Utrecht. The result is this Temple Fang album, released as a double gatefold vinyl, clocking in at nearly 80 minutes!
After the recordings, the band found a new drummer and decided to start with a clean slate. So what to do with these recordings if none of the songs will be played live again? Should they be released only digitally, up for grabs for the fans? Should they be released as a limited cassette run? Or just leave them in the vault, gathering dust forever? The band couldn't decide what to do with this album, how to approach or how to promote it.
Then the owner of Electric Spark got wind of these recordings and convinced his old childhood friend Dennis Duijnhouwer to release this album the way it properly should, on shiny black vinyl. They struck a deal to release this beast together, both as an ode to the first 3 years of Temple Fang and a transition to the new lineup. So there will be no promotional tour or release show, but these recordings are so good, that all those whistles and bells aren't necessary. This record speaks for itself!
The first disc starts off nice and serene, like monks praying in a Temple, but by the time you put the needle on the second slab of vinyl, the tone shifts more to a vicious venomous delirium a bite of a snake Fang can deliver. The journey in between is mesmerizing.
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