Shrine - Goat Skin Rite EP (2012)

Nobody likes to read a review the size of a PhD thesis when it comes to reviewing black thrash and I'm not going to be exceptionally funny so I'd keep it short and to the point.

Shrine are a fairly new band (e. metallum says they exist since 2011) and hail from Germany. Unlike the more famous rock'n'roll/hardrock bunch from California (The Shrine), just 'Shrine' have the status of a nobody knows us but we don't care kind of band, which I couldn't even find on the social media; so great, you have the obscurity status - what about the music?

I've heard several hundred new bands, trying to sound evil or exceptionally NWBHM-Enforcer kind of style but a huge part of those fall into the trap of being funny, fake, or just trying too hard. Here you don't have that. The production of the album is on the level of Euronymous's garage recordings and the abysmal stench is as strong as if you sit in a cemetery and have a cold beer with a fresh corpse.

Personally I really dig the tiny 'intros' of the songs, they sorta set the horror mood in. Carnivore's (ex-Cruel Force) vocals sound like your usual black thrash vocals but perhaps leaning more towards the black side rather than thrash. The riffs run super fast like you'd expect in mid Darkthrone era and pace mid-tempo from time to time. The drums are usually more or less buried under the guitar, which pulls off quite an old school effect.

I'd recommend this as it is fucking archaic and smells like miasmal graves. No panzers, no divisions, no people.