The Temple (band)

The Temple is one of the most recognized Rock/Metal bands from Portugal.

The band appeared to the public in the 90's, the "golden years" of The Portuguese Heavy Metal, having released their first CD in 1997. With them, the early 90's brought a whole new generation of Heavy metal bands, influenced by the opening of the portuguese music culture to foreign heavy bands such as Sepultura, Iron Maiden, Pantera, Helloween, Anthrax and Metallica.

The Temple's original formation is: João Luís (vocals), José Carlos and João Afonso (guitars) Hugo Oliveira (bass) and Rui Alexandre (drums). Their music possesses the sonority of rock, a punk attitude and the character of Heavy Metal.

Coming from Portugal, a country where contemporary artistic forms tend to suffer some neglect and lack international projection, The Temple have progressively and surprisingly conquered admirers all over the world, mainly as a result of an underground diffusion born of the enthusiasm of several radio editors, fanzines, webzines, etc. Confirming it is the fact that the 38 tracks available to the public on their website (http://www.thetemple.com.pt) for the last two years have had an average of 1,4 downloads per hour, totaling 36 000 copies.Eager to share their passion, they are incapable of being indifferent to the propagation of their music and João Afonso states “when I read some of the testimonies sent to us from different corners of the globe, the truly universal power of music hits me full force”.

The Temple have played with Machine Head, Entombed, Life of Agony and Moonspell and Rock festivals”. There are also the unique and exquisite acoustic concerts at more intellectually oriented spaces such as Évoramonte Castle and the Palace of the Counts of Mesquitela, earning The Temple undisputed appraisal by both the demanding audience and reviewers. For these occasions The Temple did more than simply turning off the instruments; a whole new approach to each song was done in order to combine the generally more disruptive and dark spirit of heavy metal with the more wholesome and clear ambience provided by the acoustic medium.

Of their two early demos of 1993 and 1994, the latter lands them the recording of their first CD, “The Angel, The Demon & The Machine”, edited by Movieplay (Skyfall) in 1997. Subsequently they are invited to participate in several compilations, namely “Hypermetal”, published by Música Alternativa and later “Bandas de Garagem 2001”, with Coca-Cola’s sponsorship.Persistent and passionate about their business, The Temple display a dedication in their live shows that grabs the attention of their current manager, Daniel Makosch, prompting him to release the maxi “DEMOnio” edited by Raging Planet. Recorded in The Temple’s rehearsal studio, this maxi and other recordings, provide the band with an experience in digital recording later used in their independent recording of the pre-production of their new body of originals, “Diesel Dog Sound”.

Recorded in London, at the Philia Studios, “Diesel Dog Sound” was produced and engineered by Dave Chang, contributing to the studio discipline and results achieved. Rui Alexandre confesses that “the fact we did the recording in England was crucial to the conception I had of these new tracks. The personality they acquired through our experience together in the land of rock is testified by their strengthened sonority. It’s become hard to imagine how else we could have achieved a result truer to ourselves”.

In addition, this work has had the contributions of Fernando Ribeiro (Moonspell’s vocalist), Zé Pedro (Xutos e Pontapés guitar player) and accordion player Ricardo Pereira, all of whom recorded their participations in Lisbon in the Tcha Tcha Tcha studios with Joe Fossard and Calú as sound engeniers and Rui Alexandre in the production.“Diesel Dog Sound” is edited by [Copro Records] (UK), with distribution in the UK, Australia, Austria, Benelux, Bulgaria, Brazil, Canada, Croatia, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Israel, and other countries. This version offers a multimedia track with additional material, namely the video clip for “Millionaire” and its “Making of”. In Portugal Raging Planet edited a DIGI-Pack version with an extra DVD including the video clips “Millionaire” and “Millionaire Lust”, the “Making of” the “Millionaire” video clip and “The Recordings” of the CD in London.

“Diesel Dog Sound” represented an unparalleled moment in the history of The Temple and the professionalism encountered in practically all sectors involved in the creation of the album and resulting sophistication of the latter raise the expectations on and responsibilities of the band.