This band of long-haired, bearded skate rats from Cali came out of nowhere and created a buzz in the underground with the release of their Primitive Blast record in 2012, which was their follow-up to their self-titled debut album released on Nice & Friendly Records. Their ferocious and utterly righteous mixture of hard rock riffs, played with punk rock energy and attitude had people freaking out from coast to coast. It also had many people tripping over themselves to classify the band.

Were they punk? Were they hard rock? To answer that question, The Shrine is just a loud and fast rock ‘n roll band, in the same vein as Motorhead and the MC5. They are the pure distillation of several butt-kicking genres of loud rock, which is a very roundabout way to say they slay and melt faces.

On this new release, they take the best parts of their debut and hone it to a fine edge. In fact, they come out with all guns firing.

They start the album with the high impact and energy trio of “Destroyers,” “Worship,” and “Tripping Corpse” to show they are ready to go from the outset. They mine a mid-paced churn on “The Duke,” which features lyrics from Black Flag’s Chuck Dukowski, an early supporter of the band whose label released their debut. The title track encapsulates everything great about the band, while “No Penalty” is a snotty punk n roll number. Closer “Hellride” shifts gears several times, eventually accelerating to a breakneck pace and features an epic and totally shredding solo from guitarist Josh Landau.

The band has created an awesome sonic offering to the holy church of rock ‘n roll with this platter. It’s time you took one of their song titles to heart and get down on your knees and worshiped its righteousness.

(Tee Pee Records, 200 East 10th Street, Box 155, New York, NY, 10003)