Primitive Blast

Hailing from Venice Beach, Calif., The Shrine is a three-piece band that injects classic skate rock with a Motor City–inspired strut and describes its music as "psychedelic violence." Its 2012 debut album on Tee Pee Records puts destruction back in the “skate and destroy” ethos. “Zipper Tripper” kicks things off with walls of sonic sludge oozing from a pile of giant amplifiers as frontman/guitarist Josh Landau segues between Wayne Kramer–inspired leads and bursts of Ron Asheton–born distortion. “Whistlings of Death” shifts The Shrine's punk ‘n’ roll juggernaut into top gear with hard-driving rhythms and Landau’s throaty howls. “Freak Fighter” throws sonic punches in between pointed angular arrangements that blend prog and punk in a way rarely heard since The Minutemen. This is immediately contrasted in the following “Run the Night,” where The Shrine forges gargantuan grooves that beg to be blasted and danced to. But the band's at its best when throwing down an annihilative thrash-boogie created for the sole purpose of skating empty swimming pools, as exemplified on the title track.