Temple Fang – Lifted From The Wind

Be smart and don’t look for champions from the Dutch capital on the football pitch. This year’s true winners are a different kind of beast, holed up in a different kind of lair, making a different kind of statement with both heart and teeth.

When Temple Fang dropped Lifted from the Wind a few weeks ago via Stickman Records, it wasn’t just their next release, it was more like a victory lap moment. After years of live sets and hypnotic jams this double LP feels like the real beginning for the Dutch heavy psych band hailing from Amsterdam. Lifted from the Wind brings forth everything they’ve been building toward. Clocking at 75 minutes and with five epic tracks each stretching between seven and over twenty minutes their first full studio album is an immersive, sprawling, and deeply intense journey that can only be understood correctly if you dare to surrender to it.

The record opens with The River, an 18-minute deep dive that serves as the band’s flag-in-the-ground statement. Guitars layer and twist around each other while the rhythm section grooves hard. The whole thing flows with a natural, unpredictable energy. One moment it’s delicate and dreamy; the next, it’s exploding in soaring guitar harmonies and rhythmic thunder. Around the 13-minute mark, the track just erupts, showcasing Temple Fang’s uncanny ability to build tension until it practically lifts off. If you only have time for one track this might be their magnum opus. Allhough really, take it from us, you need the whole ride. Then comes Once, and the vibe shifts. Slower, more introspective, this one will appeal to adepts of 70s space rock. During the first half or so this track seems like the ideal soundtrack for those long, late-night drives where the world blurs a bit. It’s less about fireworks and more about mood. Dennis Duijnhouwe’s vocals are controlled, and soulful, while Daan Wopereis’s drumming brings depth and dynamics without ever overstepping. Once again the 13-minute mark brings tempo and melody as the track breaks free. Hereafter the band ends Once in the same fashion they started by beautifully fading out.

On Harvest Angel leans all the way into their psychedelic and progressive instincts. The moody and polyphonic sung seems like an infinite build up. At its height, on a Marillion-like peak, the band calls out to “follow the rainbow”. This evidently is not a sing along line for blokes of our age. Believe it or not, we however did mumble along, because Harvest Angel simply is the next winner in the Temple Fang catalogue. Just imagine what will happen the next time our demographic catches this band live after a few beers… Anyway, with the uptempo The Radiant fluid transitions and explosive crescendos the band moves in position for a wrap up. Closer Josephine begins in a delicate stillness but then unfolds on its own terms. It’s messy, patient and cosmic.There’s a jammy looseness to it all, but it’s held together by tight musicianship and stunning production. Every instrument gets its space. The bass is warm and grounding, the guitars are lush and layered, and the percussion is subtle yet surgical. Temple Fang doesn’t want a quick goodbye but wants you to get lost in sound (and also references, as we hear a culmination of Pink Floyd, Yes, Genesis, King Crimson, Hawkwind, Motorpsycho, Jimi Hendrix, or even the Grateful Dead or Queens of the Stone Age).

Lifted from the Wind is Temple Fang at full power. This is a heavy psych-prog record with both heart and teeth, balancing between intensity and calmness. It is victory in its purest form. Without any doubt Lifted from the Wind also is an album you can return to again and again, always finding something new hiding in the corners, or, if you’re just dipping your toes into the world of psychedelic rock, offers a stunning place to start.