After one, two, three shows with its material I kind of feel like I have already reviewed Temple Fang's new album several times. So please forgive me if the following text is way shorter than the amount of praise this release actually deserves!
TEMPLE FANG - Lifted From The Wind (sky coloured vinyl 2LP) (2025)
Seventy-five minutes of glorious longform Psychedelic Rock in five songs. So far, so familiar from the Dutch quartet. Ok, this shortens to average song length to only fifteen minutes. The even more obvious novelty however is that "Lifted From The Wind" is not a live album, but the band's first actual full-length studio record. And while we're certainly allowed to be a little sad about the delightful audacity of exclusively putting out live releases (save one EP) being broken, it actually seems to come with benefits - even for these brilliant live performers.
Because even you're as good as these gentlemen, you only play every song, every part, every nuance and idea once during a show. And while it's impossible to excactly pin down every instance where it happens throughout the album, it's obvious that Temple Fang profited from choosing between more possibilities to refine their songwriting. And obviously the already great vocal harmonies also received a lot more love here.
It all feels just a little bit more on point, a little bit catchier, but also a little bit more timeless and classic than their past achievements. From the epic journeys of "The River" and "Once" to the addictive uptempo choruses of "The Radiant" and emotional richness of "Josephine" every single piece here is a brightly shining diamond of Rock, reaching to the heavens like the feather-light artwork and colour scheme of the beautiful gatefold cover and sky coloured vinyl suggests.
Maybe their live shows have made me biased, but who cares? I honestly don't know if there's really any recent band doing this blend of Rock'n'Roll better than Temple Fang. Even with the risk of this becoming an overused phrase, because appearantly I enjoy being impressed a lot, "Lifted From The Wind" is easily one of my favorite albums of the year so far!
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| Temple Fang live in Tilburg, 2025 |
It all feels just a little bit more on point, a little bit catchier, but also a little bit more timeless and classic than their past achievements. From the epic journeys of "The River" and "Once" to the addictive uptempo choruses of "The Radiant" and emotional richness of "Josephine" every single piece here is a brightly shining diamond of Rock, reaching to the heavens like the feather-light artwork and colour scheme of the beautiful gatefold cover and sky coloured vinyl suggests.
Maybe their live shows have made me biased, but who cares? I honestly don't know if there's really any recent band doing this blend of Rock'n'Roll better than Temple Fang. Even with the risk of this becoming an overused phrase, because appearantly I enjoy being impressed a lot, "Lifted From The Wind" is easily one of my favorite albums of the year so far!
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