ninehertz

Heavy Temple is fucking cool. I say this drunk on a Friday night, on my second trip round their album, but it is now without doubt and all should submit. They get it, I get it, and I get how they get it.

Fuzzed up, coated in that rattly static that will warm any stoner heart in a too short four tracks they cover all bases. Key and Bone builds upon the skeleton of Sleep with the smooth allure of All Them Witches sinew. There are elements of Colour Haze at their most direct, or the flourish of Kadavar here and there. Pink Glass establishes a nice stoner rock horizon to ride along jauntily, and In the Court of the Bastard King kicks in a sly foxy riff a couple of minutes from the end of the release that turns your eye, strutting a natural born confidence that is irrepressible.

In the cold, sober light of a frosty winter's day, will this hold up? To be honest I'm sure it will, this is thrilling fun. A spiked homebrew of psychedelia, stoner rock and a dash of proto doom, Heavy Temple succeed by resourcing the best of each of those friendly territories to blend a potent cocktail. They've managed to develop some elbow room within a crowded scene, right smack in the centre, where everything is familiar, but opening an oasis of fresh outlook that you gravitate toward. This isn't new, it isn't perfect, but it is fucking groove and all the grander for it.