Formed in January 2018, TEMPLES ON MARS are an alternative progressive rock band from London (UK) featuring James Donaldson on guitar/vocals, Gerald Gill on guitar, Daz Carikas on bass guitar, and Dean Gibb on drums. 

Temples on Mars released their self-titled debut album on 6th April 2018 via Dutch record label Primordial Records, which was recorded by award winning producer Paul Matthews at Kingston Road Studios and mastered by Sebastian Braunreuther at Mix Berlin in Germany. “Temples on Mars” received glowing reviews worldwide and the release was supported by a UK headline tour and accompanied with various international support slots and festival appearances at MacMillan Fest (UK), Progpower (Netherlands), Planet Rock Winter’s End (UK), Euroblast (Germany) to name a few, followed by a headline tour of South Africa. During this period the band’s sound was compared by the media to the more accessible likes of Muse and Nothing More with undertones of proggier acts like Karnivool, Mastodon, and Tesseract.

Temples on Mars’ second offering, “Parallels V.1” EP, was recorded at YouTube Space in London and released on July 3rd 2020 along with several accompanying videos also shot at YouTube Space during the recording of the EP. “Parallels V.1” is a self-produced collection of 5 alternative versions of tracks chosen from the debut album which has seen the band developing a darker, more electronic side of their sound.

With the restart of the live music scene post-covid pandemic in 2022, Temples on Mars made live appearances at Download Festival UK, Radar Festival UK, along with a mix of headline and support slots.

Work has now been completed on Temples on Mars’ next full length album. Written and recorded at various studios between London and Los Angeles during the height of the global pandemic in 2020/2021, the new album sees Temples on Mars further define their own sound by pushing the more accessible and electronic elements to the forefront whilst continuing to dial up the overall heaviness. Due to covid restrictions limiting drum recording, Josh Freese (Foo Fighters, A Perfect Circle, Nine Inch Nails, Guns n Roses) played the drums for a number of tracks on the record. 

The first two singles released from the new album “Sleepwalking into Extinction” (May 2022) and “Daydreamer” (October 2022)  have arguably been the bands most successful releases to date with both songs placing in the Radioscope Top 40 Rock Charts in vocalist James’ home country of New Zealand. The third single “Smile” was released 14th July 2023 along with an accompanying video and is a solid slab of grungy heaviness that explores some of life’s existential questions and urges listeners to contemplate how they would spend their time if they…”only had one day left to use.”