Temples (Photo by Ed Miles)

A time-tested strategy for independent bands to gain buzz and build an audience: releasing a few singles, playing a lot of shows, becoming the toast of many reviews.

Temples, the UK quartet from the English Midlands, find this strategy paying off for them with the release of a full album not yet due until the second week of February. But unlike many bands who follow the independent band strategy, Temples are well worth the hype, as they demonstrated in an extraordinary eight-song set at DC9 on Wednesday, Nov. 27.

Listening to Temples’ SoundCloud page in preparation for the show, as I did, prepares you for a band with rolling melodies and a lush full sound. For example, their latest single, “Keep in the Dark,” offers some great melodies among band members and some really pleasing psychedelic guitar riffs. So it’s no surprise that it’s a good song—one apparently a catchy acknowledgement of the comforts of staying up late as well as perhaps remaining unenlightened. But the live show simply takes it to another level.

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Temples (courtesy Pitch Perfect PR)

Pysch-pop outfit Temples seem to be one of those bands that broke into UK public consciousness faster than the band could keep up with it! Not due to release their premiere LP Sun Structures until February, they already have opened for the likes of Suede and Kasabian. Now they are making their first solo tour in the United States, and they are hitting very accessible venues like DC9 this Wednesday, Nov. 27.

James Baghaw (vocals, guitar) and Tom Warmsley (bass) only formed the band in Kettering, England, in 2012, enlisted Sam Toms (drums) and Adam Smith (keyboards) and promptly started releasing singles on Heavenly Recordings in the same year.

As you can see in the band’s latest video above, for the song “Keep in the Dark,” they have a flair for classic psychedelic sounds and looks with modern theatrics and visuals. They might get too big to ever see them at a venue as intimate as DC9 again, so don’t miss out on this opportunity–particularly since the next day is a holiday!

Local shoegazers Myrrh Myrrh open.

Temples
w/ Myrrh Myrrh
DC9
Wednesday, Nov. 27
Doors @8pm
$10
All ages