This week marks the release of Shrines, the debut album by Canadian duo Purity Ring. Despite the band?s young age (Corin is 21, Megan 24) and short gestation (they formed in late 2010), they have delivered one of 2012's most assured albums. The record's eleven tracks trace a unique aesthetic universe that is carefully crafted and fully realized, deftly walking the lines between trap-rap exhilaration and airy 90s R&B, lush dream pop and the powerful, bone-rattling immediacy of modern hip hop. Megan?s remarkable voice is at once ecstatic and ethereal, soaring joyfully through Corin?s carefully chopped beats, trembling synths, and skewed vocal samples. It's hardly surprising, then, that Shrines feels like anything but a first record.