ninehertz

Temple Fang return, bringing their drawn out, long form psychedelia with them. You'll need to clear your plans for a couple of hours before heading in.

The first track, The River, proves why you'll want to do that. It's easy going but with this hard to define stream of cool blowing through it, part classic rock, part prog, part psych - it feels light-touch magical despite its unassuming nature, and before you know it you're a third of the way through and yet nothing has happened and you're hooked. The middle is practically folk, soulful certainly. It's deeply moving music, similar in that way, and to a degree in the music itself, to Elder's Omens, an unexpectedly enlightening way to spend twenty minutes.

The following Once is even longer and feels mountainous, in scale and achievement. It is mellow and considered of course, once again the passage of time whilst listening does not align with what you feel, a slightly surreal experience; the calmness of it resonates throughout. There are a couple of weaker tracks thereafter, where you can easily drift away practically without realising, such is the risk of the approach I guess. But there are still strengths, the Witchcraft-minus-occult leanings in the second half of the final song, the breeziness of The Radiant.

The opening of the middle track, Harvest Angel is an audible breath out, adding credence to the persistent temptation to see these long form chill out sessions as a form of meditation. And there are long moments in the album where I was completely in its trance, lost within its charms - but it is admittedly a little bit up and down. This may be purely its length requires a personal listening patience that may naturally ebb and flow during its play through. True or not, the highs are worth it all.