ALBUM REVIEW: Enter The Woods – Sacred Shrines

Enter The Woods is the sophomore LP from Australia’s psych garage group SACRED SHRINES. The album is a fun one, full of retro riffs and sun-soaked vibes. Unfortunately though, the band stops slightly short of doing anything to make themselves fully stand out, and the album as a whole is not much to write home about.

A band which relies so heavily on the styles of the past needs to make sure that they are adding something new into the mix in order to keep themselves current and interesting. In the case of KING GIZZARD AND THE LIZARD WIZARD, it’s microtonal shifts and their relentless release schedule. With STONEFIELD, it’s their synth lines, the flavours of doom they bring to their albums (and their impeccable fashion sense). It’s something which psych bands around these days occasionally struggle with – especially in such a heavily saturated genre – and unfortunately SACRED SHRINES do fall into that trap.

Not that Enter The Woods is a bad album. It’s actually very good in several places. Stranger is a meandering riff-driven tune which updates the psych sound superbly, with heavier passages and some truly masterful backing vocals. In Aching Bones as well, the backing vocals really shine and elevate this band’s sound to something more than just another psych rock band. They’re good at writing really fun and catchy riffs, basically.

But, far too often do this band stray into bland psychedelic territory – the kind occupied by the ARIEL PINK‘s of this world (we’re truly sorry for this comparison, this band aren’t fascists as far as we’re aware). Through The Haze has that sort of dream pop sound which stoners love because it’s chill, but it’s actually just a little boring… Unfortunately. Keep All The Sunshine is a perfect example of a track which just sounds… horribly dated. Retro, but in a bad way. Retro in the way that makes you realise why music like that isn’t really made nowadays.

Enter The Woods also really suffers from a seeming indecision on the part of the songwriters, who seem to just want to try out as many different sounds as possible – not a bad thing for a jamming session, but when you look at the album as a whole it lacks a consistency, a coherent mission statement. It’s more fitting for an album which aims to sound like getting lost in the woods, but at this point it does just kind of sound like they’re a bit too lost.

SACRED SHRINES, like everyone else, has had their schedule turned upside down by the pandemic. Unfortunately, it does show. This is a good album – but if this band manages to tighten up their sound, and edit out the mediocre tracks a little more, there’s surely a great one on the way.

Rating: 5/10

Enter The Woods is set for release April 23rd via Rebel Waves Records.

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