Gods & Punks – A Shrine By The Sea

 

 

Gods & Punks – A Shrine By The Sea
Electric Valley Records – 2026
Psych, Doom, Stoner, Prog
Rated: ****

They hail from Brazil and with their 2021 album The Sounds Of The Universe they had me hook, groove and riffs. Since then two EP’s and the Death album followed, which we are ashamed to admit we never got around to mentioning on the HiVe. But in all honesty, we should have mentioned all of the Gods & Punks releases since they started back in 2017…

But we’re here now and we’ve been living with their new one A Shrine By The Sea for quite some time now. As of May, when the promo arrived as a 10 track digital album. And then again as the vinyl two-track it is meant to be. Two tracks, both 21 minutes and 12 seconds long. That’s right: 2112. I’ll let you make the connection. And as that connection might feel deep. The album will make it all feel even more so.. 

A Shrine By The Sea feels like a majestic voyage into the heavy music’s deeper waters. The two sprawling compositions sees the Brazilian quartet navigate beautifully between crushing doom, lysergic psychedelia, stoner haze and some progressive intricacy, without ever staying anchored for long. Riffs rise high like majestically dark swells, before slowly dissolving into drifting guitar passages, ghostlike vocals, acoustic calm and waves of seventies touched organ…

The Lighthouse. Draws you in, and crashes ashore with Sabbathian weight, stormy, dramatic. A restless, tidal fury flows within. Hypnotic and wonderfully unpredictable, The Lighthouse is all that heavy psych turned to an oceanic pilgrimage. 

Poseidon on the other hand is allowed to drift more. Patient and psychedelic, it begins in spacious waters before gathering its force through hypnotic riffs, shimmering guitar, organ swells and restless progressive turns. There’s a sense of something vast slowly awakening beneath the surface. Strange, fluid and immersive this slower, stranger current is what carries Gods & Punks  into deeper waters. And as those final harmonies fade away, the voices carried away with the tide, you will feel at peace again… 

Yet for all its ambition, nothing feels excessive. Nothing feels overdone and all is measured and delivered with prime execution. Every shift in volume, texture and tempo serves the journey. The result is atmospheric by default, and absolutely progressive, without losing any of its primal heft. It’s allowed to drift and spin, but never becomes weightless. It’s Gods & Punks  and the sea, it’s the sound of the sea forever in the background, it’s the sound forever in your mind. A Shrine By The Sea is a stunning, immersive and beautifully strange trip into deep unknown… 

(Written by JK)

Bandcamp

Instagram

Facebook

 Electric Valley Records

Gods & Punks – The Sounds Of The Universe