Storm Surge of Reverb

I've wanted to look into the El Caminos past their excellent Del-Fi Release Reverb Explosion, but their other releases aren't terribly cheap for an American to find. So here we have a compilation of unreleased tunes from before that record. Some of them are familiar: alternate takes that found their way onto other El Caminos records, some are covers. It's good trad surf, though nothing that quite jumps at me like Reverb Explosion did. It's great to have more material, even if it's old, from a great Japanese surf group.

Here's one I almost passed by completely. Between the - I'm sorry but - terrible album art and the genitalia joke in the band name, I figured this would be some awful snotty garage-style surf rock a la Wavves. I took the risk though, and was immediately bowled over by some top-notch honkin' sax over a surf beat. This the good stuff: well produced trad surf with memorable melodies, nice big guitar sound backed up by some smartly accenting bass and keys. The first two tracks definitely outperform the second half, but it's all good. Mark 'em down in your book, or whatever.