Amy Hagemeier


The Shrine
Primitive Blast
Tee Pee Records

These loud, fast, hard skate punk/metal songs originally came out as the Bless Off! demos, reviewed here in the last ish by yours truly, where I gave ‘em straight A’s—“A” for “anarchy!” They had a gruff but spastic, almost boyish charm, which these mixes haven’t mellowed. But things certainly have matured, and with age comes POWER. Mind you, there’s no major editing change here to throw you off—the first thing I scrambled to check out was whether singer/guitarist Josh Landau’s brief falsetto on “Louise” and “Whistlings of Death” remained intact, and no, Tee Pee did NOT put the kibosh on ‘em. But the official release is more bass-y, not the instrument but the timbre, almost literally as if you’d turned the big Bass/Treble knob on your 8-Track player just a tad to the left. It’s a fuller sound, the difference between Steven Adler and Matt Sorum-era Guns & Roses. And while the coke-fiends out there might miss a bit of the trebly snap, the heightened fidelity actually highlights their most frenetic moments: the stereo is more pronounced, so you hear cool friction in the double-tracked vocals and more Thin Lizzy influence in songs such as “Run the Night.” I’d say all the songs, and all three players, now stand out more as individuals. Don’t ask me whether I like this more than the demos—you should own them both. But this new version shows the Shrine can play with the big boys. Watch out, Ozzfest…

-D. M. Collins