- Brisbane’s The Trouble With Templeton have followed up their early successful EPs with an equally impressive debut album, Rookie. The band have often made it clear that they aim to transcend any particular genre, and true to their word, this record encompasses a variety of genres and sounds with refreshingly artistic sincerity.

Front man Thomas Calder provides the majority of the vocals on the album, with a voice that is both beautifully soft yet very powerful. The emotive tones and soaring melodies in You Are Now particularly highlight Calder’s talents.

It’s not all ballads filled with softly strung melodies and instrumental arrangements, variety arrives early on the album in the form of the Like A Kid, with a heavy rock opening, big vocals and an even bigger chorus. This is The Trouble With Templeton breaking genre boundaries in the best possible way, and for a band with a fairly varied repertoire, if they ever should narrow their artistic vision it would be great to hear more of this.

Breakout single, Six Months In A Cast is a fast paced rollick driven by acoustic guitar, with a simple chorus and Calder’s raw vocals. It’s a mark of a well-produced album that the evidence of production isn’t forced into the forefront. Rookie walks the line between a flowing overall album and a collection of interestingly different songs, and for the most part it balances quite well.

Climate is one minute and twelve seconds of eclectic piano, offbeat percussion and low chanting vocals that’s all over before it can really be taken in. It blends seamlessly into the next track, I Recorded You, a soft ballad with a simple acoustic melody and some ethereal keyboard sounds. The transition is quite a lot to take in but however strange it feels, it’s never jarring or unpleasant.

The soft minimalism continues right through to Flowers In Bloom, with layers of instruments and Calder’s polished and controlled vocals. Overall Rookie serves as a great showcase of all that The Trouble With Templeton can do whilst eluding to the great potential that the band possesses. It’s a mature sound from such a young band with some great production elements and sound artistic direction.

- Clare Armstrong.