Australia’s contribution to the wider world of metal is somewhat slight, in fact, I’m fairly sure I can count the number of Aussie metal bands I’m familiar with on one hand. Perhaps it’s the ever-present sunshine that’s to blame; I can hardly imagine it being an idyllic setting to provide inspiration unless you are one of the many cringeworthy soapstar-cum-pop tarts that have littered our charts over the years.
Thankfully Temujin don’t follow in the traditions of their fellow Aussies. This duo of Kelly (vocals, keyboards) and Karl (everything else) must have spent their entire lives living under a giant rain cloud, as I don’t think Kelly will be leading any sort of Locomotion along Sidney bay in brightly coloured hotpants.
Joining the ever expanding list of female fronted metal bands, this album shows Temujin to have an appealing sound and quite a bit of promise. Kelly’s vocals strike me as very down-to-earth; she clearly knows her own range and doesn’t attempt to pull off anything too fancy. With the occasional ethereal glimpse, her vocals lay a veil of sorrow upon the main musical foundations, at times leading me to think of Kaisa Joukhi (Battlelore). I get the distinct impression from what is on offer here that Kelly has yet to reach her full potential as a vocalist, and with a bit of vocal strengthening I would expect this band could do something much better than this.
Musically this is fairly solid stuff; there is an overall crunch to the sound that reminds me quite a bit of Lacuna Coil. There are some clean, heavy guitar riffs such as on ‘Sheltered’ and ‘All Of You’, which are balanced out with well executed keyboard lines which add the right laid back electronic touches in enough of the right places to boost the ambiance. The unfortunate thing here is that while there are some fine elements scattered throughout this record that have me really wanting to like Temujin, there are no songs that really stand out or that strike me as being anything special. It is still early days for them having just signed a deal with American label Renaissance Records, though I’d have to hope for slightly better things from them in years to come if they are really going to break onto the scene.
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