New album Khaos Divine sees Aussie power purveyors Temtris continue their impressive upward trajectory, delivering a polished, power-packed platter that maintains the band’s roots in heads-down madness whilst once again refining their assault; Temtris 2023 is very much more about precision, although there is still enough bludgeon in play to keep old fans happy.
As ever. vocalist Genevieve Rodda is at the eye of the Temtris storm, delivering a battering ram performance that takes no prisoners on tracks like Evolution of Hate and Eternal Death Machine. There aren’t many female vocalists currently doing the rounds that can match Rodda’s amped-up mix of muscle and melody, and on KD she proves beyond doubt that she’s a total master of the dark arts of metal vocalisation. Her performance on this album’s pivotal track, The Path, is absolutely devastating, bringing together all her strongpoints in a performance that defies the listener to find fault (hint: you won’t be able to).
But Temtris is more than just a very fine vocalist, and at it’s best – the storming closing track Ground Zero must be getting close to the best thing this band has ever committed to tape – Rodda is backed to the hilt by some spectacular guitar interplay from the band’s twin axe assailt team Anthony Fox and Nadi Nazourian, a pair that sound like they’ve been playing together forever. A similar state of affairs exists between bassist Vane Danov and drummer Nicholas Bolin, whose watertight rhythm detonations are surely up there with the best in the business on this evidence. This is a formidable unit.
All this adds up to indubitably the best Temtris album we’ve been given yet, from a band who, seven albums in to a near-quarter century career, still manage to go from strength-to-strength. We’ve been touting big things for this band on the World Stage here at Sentinel Daily for some while now – and, after repeated listens to Khaos Divine, I’m convinced that the band’s time could well be now. Let’s hope so!
Khaos Divine releases on March 17th.
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