Temple of Angels - Endless Pursuit - New LP Record 2023 Run For Cover Cloudy Clear Vinyl - Dream Pop / Goth / Post-Punk

Temple of Angels’ debut full-length, Endless Pursuit, is a towering and stunning album of gothic beauty that heralds the proper arrival of one of the most dazzling bands performing right now. Shaped by the ghosts of the past and the wonder of the present, the release is dream pop at its most striking, using the haze and beauty of the genre not to blur songs til they are impenetrable in every sense, but rather to capture the fleeting wonder of new love and emphasize the confusion and disorientation of loss.

Formed in 2017 in Austin, Texas, Avery Burton (guitar/vocals), Patrick Todd (drums/vocals), and Cole Tucker (guitar) had all played in various hardcore and punk bands around town for years, but were keen to explore the dreamier, moodier music they enjoyed as well. After recording a few demos, they recruited Bre Morell (vocals) to be their lead singer. The new group self-releasing two EPs–2017’s Temple of Angels and 2018’s Foiled–and a single on Funeral Party Records in 2019, and were soon performing with the likes of Beach Fossils, Iceage, Narrow Head, and Turnover as well as at festivals like Levitation and Not Dead Yet.

Now Temple of Angels have arrived with Endless Pursuit. Recorded with Colin Knight (Death Bells, Fury, Leisure World) and Phillip Odom (Ceremony, Militarie Gun, Portrayal of Guilt), and then mastered by Will Yip (Turnover, Citizen, Title Fight), the album sounds so fully formed and assured that it belies the difficult circumstances that inspired it. While Temple of Angels started working on Endless Pursuit in 2020, the pandemic and Morell’s move to Los Angeles meant that the band wouldn’t start recording it until late 2021. In that in-between, separated from friends and partner, Morell began to fully process the loss of her mother in 2017. “I started having extremely vivid nightmares reliving certain experiences with my mom that started to take over my life, trapping me in that trauma,” Morell explains. These dreams, filled with “the constant feeling that something or someone so essential to you is missing, home doesn't feel like home anymore, and something about this world just feels off now” would form the central core of Endless Pursuit. A sense of unease can be heard in the eerie lumber of the title track that opens the record, all shimmering, spider-like guitar lines and Morell’s hushed vocals swirling together. Or the way Morell’s voice reaches a pained, aching wail in the finale of “Lost in Darkness”, capturing the sense of person or moment that is truly lost forever.