Alfie Templeman starts to sound like rock in 'Mellow Moon'
19-year-old UK-born vocalist and multi-instrumentalist makes studio album debut
I first heard Alfie Templeman on “3D Feelings”, a single released in 2021 and now on studio debut album Mellow Moon, which came out on Friday.
Immediately I was struck by the rich production (by Justin Young, lead singer and guitarist of The Vaccines, which also just released Planet of the Youth last month).
With Mellow Moon, Templeman continues to develop as a modern musician. Like An Animal, debut EP released 2018, sounds like a cross between folk and lo-fi bedroom indie pop, which makes sense looking at his Wikipedia — self-described “indie R&B” and Like An Animal was literally recorded, produced, and uploaded to Spotify from Templeman’s bedroom.
In Sunday Morning Cereal (2019), he appears to be exploring harder rock with more prominent backbeat and electric guitar chords. “Stop Thinking (About Me)” opens with a beat and set of chords that remind me of “Cake By the Ocean” by DNCE (in turn influenced by the decades of rock musicians before them) but Templeman makes the track softer with a focus on more melodies of his vocals rather than scream-singing as DNCE does (“dance pop” after all). He also sounds like he’s on the side of using his voice as an instrument rather than telling a story with the actual lyrics themselves, as the instrumentals really come up and play with his vocals rather than focusing on the lyrics; this is totally fine for me personally as I appreciate the complete sound, but I’m sure when he releases a stripped acoustic cover or EP that’ll be a game-changer for him. In Forever Isn’t Long Enough (2021) we hear the transition into a deeper, darker sound, a minor-dominated synth pop.
The gradual but noticeable change in Templeman’s sound over the years separates him from his peers, especially because he’s only 19. He already sounded solid in Like An Animal (that’s why Spotify gave him his big break by putting him on Discover Weekly and he now has millions of monthly listeners), but it was a fairly run-of-the-mill easy, passive listen. Templeman’s sound is becoming fuller and just has more good heft and substance to it. He started out in 2018 sounding like a grape soda and now it’s a complex, still sweet root beer. There are some gems on Forever Isn’t Long Enough that he’s reinforced in Mellow Moon which make me excited to hear Templeman’s continuing musical development. I’ll bet his next release will be a ginger beer, maybe a light cider. I’m holding out for the day he releases a proper wheat beer.
Standouts on Mellow Moon are “3D Feelings”, “Galaxy”, and “Take Some Time Away”. I’ll close with “Galaxy”, which features an impressive guitar riff and is one of the slower, harder backbeat tracks on the album:
There is a genre of music at home in places like Caribbean all-inclusive resorts. If Billboard had a category for it, “3D Feelings” would dominate.
I should note that I happen to love this sound; it represents sun & escape for me; vital medicine when you live somewhere that had frost warnings as recently as 2-3 weeks ago.