Dunedin’s Julian Temple Band are all set to release their latest record “Antarctica” on June 1st, 2018.

For their sixth and arguably most textured album to date, JTB have employed the talents of three new members, doubling their line-up since their humble beginnings as a 3-piece - Steve Marshall (Left Or Right) has picked up the low end bass duties, Logan Hampton (Alizarin Lizard) has joined in on keys and synth, and Richard Ley-Hamilton (Males, Space Bats Attack!, Asta Rangu) wails on electric guitar, while stalwarts Paul McLennan-Kissel, Alex Vaatstra and Julian Temple are happily still at the drums, violin, guitar/vocals respectively. 

Lush sounding and never tied down to any sort of genre, the album, which was recorded at Chick's Hotel in Port Chalmers, Dunedin, instates flavours of blues, psychedelic and hooky pop, always with dark and bouncy undertones. Temple's songwriting is still as idiosyncratic as ever yet still familiar in a way that gives the listener an almost tangible soundscape to grasp onto. The band provides a textured hammock for the voice and song to lay back in, with Hampton's Doors-esqe keyboards and Vaatstra's avant-garde violins pushing and pulling to create a combination not often heard. Ley-Hamilton's and Temple's electric and acoustic guitar work flesh the songs out with plenty of dirt, while the rhythm section of Steve Marshall and PMK provide a distinguished pulse that tattoos the listeners ear with an indelible mark. 

Named "Antarctica" after one of the songs, the title suits the album's atmosphere impeccably, lending itself to a vibrant starkness that is cold and dark yet at the same time, provides the warmth one would yearn for in such an environment.