Album Review: Tempo Temporal from The Selmanaires

March 20, 2010 1 Comment

The latest album from ATL indie superstars The Selmanaires titled Tempo Temporal, is quite a step in a different direction from their debut full length release The Air Salesmen in 2008. While the talent and efficiency is not absent from Tempo Temporal, it doesn’t come across as wholly powerful as The Air Salesmen. You can do nothing but admire a band willing to change it up so much from album to album, however; and I am not meaning in any way to take away from the grandeur that is Tempo Temporal. The album I believe is psychedelic at root, paying much more attention to electronic details then The Air Salesmen. The Selmanaires have taken out much of the funk feel to their music and added in a ton of experimentation and psychedelia and really show that their sound is multifaceted and not afraid to cross genre lines.
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White Chyrsanthemum, the album’s opening track, is an eerie jungle mist approaching from a cold, shadowy distance. Resonance Alright adds a lighter feel than the opener and reminds me of the soundtrack to an epic role playing game, or the background music in a jazz bar where everyone’s on extacy and the music makes the role. Dials is a light, jazz inspired song that stays spacey and airy throughout. It could easily be the soundtrack to a french noir film and makes you want to dim the lights and light a cigar, among other things. The album then moves to Spun From Witch’s Daughter, fusing the funk I love about The Selmanaires with their new found love of the surreal. The final tracks Deep Sleep and Vacant Land stand to the true insouciant nature of Tempo Temporal. The songs are dark, free flowing and sharp and The Selmanaires prove that their talent and scope is impressionable and malleable.

Resonance Alright played live at the Earl…