By Andrew Bansal
Over the past couple of years, Venice, California-based hard rock trio The Shrine have truly broken out of the local Los Angeles scene to lay waste to stages in Europe, Australia and beyond. They released their debut full-length ‘Primitive Blast’ in 2012 but aside from playing songs off of that LP, they’ve been showcasing plenty of newer material in shows which has built up the anticipation surrounding the release of their second album ‘Bless Off’, hitting stores tomorrow March 11th via Tee Pee Records.
The ‘Primitive Blast’ LP clearly embodies the California skater punk vibe, and even though the new album retains that feeling to a large extent, it sheds light on the band’s musical progression by demonstrating their rock ‘n roll side to a greater extent, starting off all guns blazing with three rip-roaring tunes ‘Destroyers’, ‘Worship’ and ‘Tripping Corpse’. But then, the album slows down on tunes like ‘The Duke’, ‘Nothing Forever’ and ‘On The Grind’, bringing out more of the Sabbath-y classic doom embedded within The Shrine’s musical creativity, while the title song and tracks such as ‘No Penalty’, ‘Spit In My Life’, ‘Napalm’ and ‘Hellride’ are all about what The Shrine’s own unique blend of stoner rock and skater punk, a style they execute so excellently as a three-piece.
Vocalist/guitarist Josh Landau and his band mates have undoubtedly taken their songwriting to a whole new level with the tunes they’ve written for this album, injecting a great degree of diversity in the song structures and arrangements while still retaining the rawness and energy that comes across in their live performances. ‘Bless Off’ aptly captures the essence of The Shrine as a band creating great music and hungry for success, and comes extremely close to giving the listener a taste of what it’s like to hear The Shrine in a live setting.
The quality of production on ‘Bless Off’ is several notches higher as compared to that of ‘Primitive Blast’, which makes it a far more listenable album and plays an important part in bringing the best out of the music. The sound is pristine and solid without being too clean, and balance in the mix is absolutely perfect with all three members getting to shine in equal parts.
The Shrine’s ‘Bless Off’ has all the ingredients that make it an album ideal to be blasted at obscenely high volumes, and listeners would be best-served to crank this 38-minute album from start to finish, as there really is no dull moment or filler on it whatsoever. With this new and improved interpretation of psychedelic violence, the juggernaut of The Shrine looks set to gather further momentum this year.
Rating: 9.5/10
Record Label: Tee Pee
Release Date: March 11th 2014
Track Listing:
01. Destroyers
02. Worship
03. Tripping Corpse
04. The Duke
05. Nothing Forever
06. Bless Off
07. On the Grind
08. No Penalty
09. Spit In My Life
10. Napalm
11. Hellride
Links:
TheShrineBand.com
facebook.com/TheShrineFuzz
instagram.com/TheShrine