Purity Ring: Shrines

4AD artists Canadian duo Purity Ring, have embellished boom boxes across the world with their dubbed, high pitched, ethereal sounds. Detonating the electro, dream pop sound bomb which has been set to implode in the recent year. This time presenting a more complex, lyrically sufficient set of eleven tracks on their new album “Shrines”. Composed of contrasting bouncy, fast tempo songs minced with transient, blissed out sounds engulfed by warped, robotic vocals, booming bass and fidgety electronic pulses throughout. Each zapping the listener’s consciousness, as they are pulled in and out of a trance like state.

A standout would have to be “Fineshrine”, which exhales the murderous distain of love.  “Get a little closer, let fold. Cut open my sternum and pull, My little ribs around you” The crude lyrics poking their way into normalcy purely due to the gothic nature of the distantly influential electro punk music of the band ‘Salem’. The sweet, candy coted vocals of Megan James, conceal the pending bitterness. “Obedear” is definitely set to be played incessantly in youth circles at hazy raves. It is built up at the start with haunting music like the eerie suspense’s throughout horror films, toward a pinnacle of tension. And it then ruptures into dreamy thrusts of warped shrill sounds, lulling bass and sovereign vocals. Pulsing and crashing like waves of electronic infused water. Slowly doomy bass and increasingly twitchy, fidgety electronic pulses invade each crevasse like tiny fish in a reef.

These eleven fine-sounding tracks give birth to lyrical complexity strewn into acid trippy, transient, distorted undertones. This album dismantles the truths of perfection in lyrics breeding new perspective and abruptness in what is appropriate. This album attests to the fact that “Purity Ring” hold a firm place as an exceedingly visionary and diverse artist under the 4AD label. Let it be known we now have a battle of the electro-punk trance artists.

Tagged ‘Salem’, “Fineshrine”, “Obedear”, “Shrines”, 4AD, Canadian, electro-punk, Purity Ring, trance