Zane Roessell on October 15th, 2019

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“Hello Los Angeles, it’s great to be back.”

Hot off the dusty trail from their Saturday set at Desert Daze Festival, Temples flooded the Echoplex with their psych-rock wizardry. Opening with “The Howl,” off their third full-length “Hot Motion,” and boasting greater catalog depth, the band opted to almost completely omit 2017’s playful “Volcano,” rather tapping their tried-and-true 2014 debut, “Sun Structures.” As lackadaisical as the stage banter may have been, the enraptured audience couldn’t be bothered with all that fuzz bouncing about their ears — some were even compelled to dance. Summing up the night before descending into “Hot Motion,” lead James Bagshaw deadpanned, “OK, this is our last one — if you want, we’ll pretend this is our last one, get off stage and then come back.”

Opening up the night were Gdansk, Poland’s Trupa Trupa. Walking a fine line of shoegaze and post-hardcore, they crafted a very palpable sense of dread that was only accentuated by the baleful guitar dives. In contrast to their menacing setlist, frontman Grzegorz Kwiatkowski announced each song by name with an almost incongruous verve that was hilariously charming. In contrast with their headliners, Trupa Trupa offered up a set that was fresh and challenging.

Setlist: The Howl, Certainty, You’re Either On Something, Colours To Life, Holy Horses, The Golden Throne, Atomise, Content, The Beam, Oh the Saviour, Keep In The Dark, Shelter Song, Hot Motion. Encore: A Question Isn’t Answered, Mesmerise.

Photos and recap by Zane Roessell