Tempel's "On the Steps of the Tempel"

On the Steps of the Tempel

If you listen to as much metal as me, you probably can agree that the genre has a problem with creativity. I realize that homogeneity is a problem that affects all areas of music (and most other forms of art, come to think of it), but it's always seemed to me that metal music suffers from this more than other genres. While there are countless new bands popping up, a sizable portion of them seem to either be content with occupying - at least to me - already well-explored subgenres (e.g. neo-Thrash bands like Evile, Havoc,  Savage Messiah, etc.), or competing to see who can drive farther off the map of extreme music, which can be seen at different ends of the spectrum in bands like Pig Destroyer, The Black Dahlia Murder, and The Dillinger Escape Plan vs. Soma, Boris, and Sunn 0))).

So in the middle of all this polarity, it's refreshing to see a band like Tempel come up out of the woodwork. On the Steps of the Tempel is their debut album, and it's an excellent of example of how to make music that is supremely heavy without sacrificing hooks or appropriate song lengths. The first track, "Mountain", is eight and a half minutes of chugging riffs that do an excellent job of sucking you in before getting sludgy with the follow-up, "Rising from the Abyss". From here the boys give you some quiet time with "Final Years" before repeating the pattern all over again with the last three tracks.

While the riffs and musicality are deserving of praise here, I'm more impressed with the band's inclusion of quiet, sparse pieces to give you a chance to catch your breath and to give the really crushing tracks like "Avaritia" more punch.

All in all, really solid. Highly recommended.