### The Shrine: Primitive blast

#### 11/07/12 || gk

The Shrine is an American power trio that plays some loud, noisy garage rock with influences from punk, stoner and thrash metal. I’m not sure where the psychedelic in the bands description of “Psychedelic Violence Rock and Roll” comes from but honestly, I didn’t find anything psychedelic in “Primitive Blast”. The thing with this kind of music is that I expect something raucous and extremely catchy. What I got on “Primitive Blast” was dissonant noise rock with a punk attitude which is fine by itself but the songs strangely lack energy. These guys are being compared by a whole lot of press to Black Flag and particularly “My War” but honestly, it’s not that good and the band doesn’t really have the songs or the unhinged energy of Black Flag. In fact, I’d say that apart from “Freak Fighter” and “Run the Night” the album seriously lacks memorable songs and is quite boring. So basically, punk rock meets classic rock meets stoner and it feels like they’re trying a bit too hard and ending up in Boring town.

4/10: And just a bit whatever.