Tempelheks – Midnight Mirror (2018)

From the murky streets of Oslo comes a four-headed snake bearing the name Tempelheks. Tempelheks is a psychedelic and occult heavy rock experience. Based on 70’s riffage, the band experiments with folky and traditional melodies coupled with eerie and mystical vocals. A groovy but hard beat drives the doomed caravan onward.

Originally conceived as a solo project by Martin Horn Sørlie (HS) in 2013 Tempelheks released their debut EP the gritty lo-fi “Red Forest ” which got picked up by a doom/stoner channel on YouTube. The unexpected attention motivated Tempelheks to write their self-titled debut album in 2014. With the debut album, the foundation of the serpent-worshipping cult’s temple was created.

The debut album was picked up by Norwegian underground label Heksekunst Productions. Both “Red Forest EP” and “Tempelheks” were recorded with limited funds and equipment in an old loft in Rælingen, outside of Oslo. The raw, unpolished sound gave the recordings a lot of character and helped build the occult atmosphere of the sound.

By the summer of 2015, a band was assembled and founding member HS was accompanied by Andreas Prestby (drums, percussion), Espen Sande Larsen (bass, backing vocals) and Sindre Øhman (guitar). Work on a new album started, which resulted in “Serpents, Gods and Men” that was released in August of 2016. This was also the first Tempelheks album to be pressed to vinyl. This time the recording sessions took place in a professional studio in Vestby, Norway. Jørn-Arild Grefsrud’s clean and powerful production took the sound in another direction, but still true to the occult and dark atmosphere of the previous releases.

Since then Tempelheks has played concerts through out Norway with bands like Dunbarrow, Horisont, Gravy Jones and Superlynx. Next step is to play abroad where the band looks to tour Scandinavia and northern Europe during fall 2018. Prior to recording their third album Tempelheks regrouped to now include a lineup constituting of HS, Sindre and new members Magnus Bjørnstad (bass & backing vocal) and Håkon Bergh (Drums & percussion).

On ‘Midnight Mirror’ Tempelheks chose to record in the renowned Cederberg studio in Kristiansand, Norway. Here they were accompanied by producer, friend, ex-label-head and vocalist of Dunbarrow; Espen Andersen. The sessions were done live and fast which gave little room for pickiness, over-thinking or compromise. The result was a characteristic, back-to-the roots kind of sound that lean more towards retro-rock than the more metal-fuelled sound of “Serpents, Gods and Men”.

The new album sees Tempelheks stretching out to incoorporate a wider sonical range. Midnight Mirror thus span a variety of influences from the darker side of hard rock bringing to front a musical footprint sure to appeal to fans of contemporary bands such as Uncle Acid, early Kadavar, HEAT, Demon Head and their fellow countrymen in Devil as well as classic acts as Thin Lizzy, Pentagram, King Crimson and Reverend Bizarre.

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Special thanks to CTRs and the rest of the team at Tempelheks for this Friday Freebie offering. And thanks to the ongoing contributors and readers of the monthly Doom Chart.  You folks help give voice to the heavy underground:

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