A home-grown hotbed of talent
It’s annoying isn’t when you don’t see something under your own nose that was there all along. It’s that feeling when you can’t find your house keys or your phone, you accuse all and sundry of taking them, tear the house to shreds and find they were in your pocket all along. You feel achingly stupid that you missed the obvious: pride dented and house wrecked you feel defeated and a fool.
In some regards searching for really good bands incur the same type of feelings; you spend a lifetime searching for a sound that will make your ears sing and your heart burst, you duly trundle off to gigs and get covered in beer, bruises and sweat and on most occasions at the end of the night you feel let down by another series of disappointments.
Hailing from Birmingham, three piece Templeton Pek have already sealed a Japanese release under Pyropit Records and have been on the Give It A Name Festival in 2007 and shared stages in 2006 and 2007 with Taking Back Sunday and Killswitch Engage on the Taste of Chaos tour. Already showing that they have the ability, their debut album is far from disappointing.
Melodic punk rock at its heart, this is music gunning for the big time. Templeton Pek are reaching for the stars and their high aspirations can be heard within every beat and every note: this is music that wouldn’t sound out of place on any of the huge American punk rock tours that traverse over the states and beyond in summer. There seems to be an incredible amount of ambition on show here and it shows: from the shiny production values courtesy of Joe Gibb, the rather talented gentleman behind Million Dead, Jane’s Addiction et al to the crafting of lyrics and music: this is a well considered, solid effort.
In short, No Association is a tight album which is incredibly well produced with a strong body of songs and a great sense of melody: this is an album which could easily rival any of the American bands which have the monopoly of this breed on melodic punk rock. Whether or not they will be a home-grown success story will only be decided by time, but regardless, this is an impassioned reason why the UK punk rock is just as relevant and exciting as any other. The only sticking point is how on earth this band remained such as well kept secret for so long.