Sacred Shrines are a Brisbane-based five piece that deliver juicy psychedelic and garage-inspired tunes and do so with rare authenticity that makes for all the more enjoyable listening.
For a band that only hit the live stage 12 months ago and capped their second ever show as support for The Dandy Warhols, a pairing that screams beautiful excess, they have certainly taken a dip in all the right pools to get to the release of their debut album Come Down From The Mountain.
On that debut is lead single Collisions which they have just released a video for and if the pairing is anything to go by it might be time to dust off your flares and silk scarves for some throwback psychedelia.
Brisbane 5 piece Sacred Shrines conjure a hallucinogenic haze and pure party vibes on their excellent new video for Collisions
Collisions is reminiscent of the more upbeat deliveries of Brian Jonestown Massacre with a smattering of The Kinks. An accomplished song with fuzzy guitars and a driving rhythm section all warmly wrapped in gorgeous reverb to really set the dream off.
It’s the type of track that is the dialogue of the halcyon, hallucinogenic haze that’s taking place in the basement of your mind. Sacred Shrines know this and the video helps explain it.
Black and white, sepia tones and saturated images help promote that lysergic feeling as we follow the band through myriad of explorations that include live shows, architecturally interesting buildings, masked figures, a goat and one brief but suspect ATM transaction. All the essential ingredients for a soul-nourishing experience.
The video never sticks on one scene for too long which inadvertently helps expose the delightfully manic undertones of the song. Scenes flicker and falter, bend and melt, and the whole thing is almost impossible not to get lost in it.
Everything really takes off as the solo rises through the mix, the video skips and flutters like an old VHS tape before exploding in to rainbow colours to match your ensuing flashback.
The video, as does the song, tiptoes the line between the current day experiences of a rock band mixed with an unabashed love of their influences. There is an obvious adoration of psychedelia and classic rock and roll that is neither cheesy nor overdone.
It’s in their name, Sacred Shrines, a band worshipping at the altar of the mind, borrowing from the past and bending it to the future.
