Olde combine an intensity with pure fury for their third album Temple. Their first release The Gates of Dawn established them as a band akin to Clutch albeit more slowed down and more intense. I, their second album, saw the band wrenching more towards their own sound and succeeding with grittier vocals and instrumentation. Olde is Ryan Aubin on drums, Greg Dawson and Chris Hughes on guitars, Doug McLarty on vocals, and Cory McCallum on bass.
Doug wails with the passion of a drunken barbarian searching for his next prey on opening track “Subterfuge”. Greg and Chris’s guitars compliment Corey and Ryan instruments to doomed perfection. A legitimately harmonious section consumes everything soon after letting your mind catch up to everything until a vicious rage extinguishes any beauty created. “Now I See You” is sludgier in every aspect. Everything is gnarled “now scream for mercy” by Doug. The entire experience is akin to your entire subconscious being pressed tighter and tighter until you flatline. “The Ghost Narrative” acts like your first heartbeat bring you back into reality. All of your blood, feelings, and emotions are flooded back into you and your full of a kinetic energy. Title track “Temple” is by far the most doom filled exercise on the record. It’s powerful, collective, and brooding and sets the scene for the rest of our journey. “Centrifigul Disaster”, “Maelstrom”, with a stunt solo by Ryan Aubin, and “Castaway”, with a guest solo by Simon Talevski, continue with the foundation brought with “Temple”. Each moment moves at a snails paced instrumentation intertwined with an almost off balanced vocal style that’s, to me, like being trait deep within a blizzard screaming and continually moving to keep your heart going through arctic depths that can lead either to a dwindling life that ends with a frozen corpse. Or a life saving safe haven where you can continue living. But, that’s the strength of this record. No matter what it never stops kicking. It never tires of life’s miserable glory.
Richard Murray
POW! Magazine
