TEMPLES
Bliss (V2)
On their fifth album, Kettering-formed quartet Temples branch to an even more electronic direction from their Unknown Mortal Orchestra-adjacent roots. Following an underwhelming response to 2025’s Exotico, Bliss sees the band’s attempt to come back with a bang. They succeed, in part.
Opener Jet Stream Heart throws you into a speaker-driven, bassy dance-trance. Following tracks Revelation and Megalith maintain this energy, but the band drift off and lose energy as the album goes on. Reaching for the likes of Air, Massive Attack and Orbital, this results in a faux-nostalgic dance album; penultimate track Waiting On The Echoes overuses fade effects to an almost laughable extent and culminates in an anticlimactic drop.
Reminiscent of a 90s Ibiza the band were too young to experience, Bliss is, on the surface, fresh, fun and summery, though it does seem to follow the arc of any night out: an exuberant come-up, followed by an inevitable letdown.
words MENNA WILSON
