Amphibian Man has emerged from its tadpole phase as a one-man bedroom project into a 3-piece band that performs live and does real band things like not release music every 2 months for free. First and foremost, I'm happy for them. Amphibian Man has been one of the biggest stand-outs in surf in recent years and I love that they're making money from it both from records and from people seeing them live. Wish it could be me but Ukraine's not too close.

This is my own terminology for surf music that's more punk-influenced, with a focus on speed and force before anything else. I like it because it rhymes with Trad. It's not necessarily about who's the loudest and the fastest as much as it's about who's the best at being loud and fast.

I once declared that 2016 belonged to Amphibian Man, so now it's time to see what he has in store for us in the new year.

There are some things that deserve recognition other than just the albums themselves. This is the category where I get to spill out the rest of those observations. These categories change year to year.

What is "Rad instro"? Well, I made it up, mostly because "Rad" rhymes with "Trad". There are other words you could use: "aggro" or in the college radio world there's "loud". This is the instro music that's all about power, speed and adrenaline.

Honorable Mentions

Los Tiros - Expertos En Cagarla

4 months of silence seems like an eternity from Amphibian Man, but he's back with a Spaghetti Western angle. He's learning how to slow down a bit, not just in terms on his release schedule, but on songs like the very steady "Ghost Town" and "Skeleton Pass". That said, there's plenty of action in here on songs like "Train Robbery".

Ukraine's most prolific surf musician strikes again! Waves is a more sunny, trad surf approach but with a relentless energy. There's a greater focus on melody, though with oodles of speed and intensity kept in the mix. If you're a fan of 13th Magic Skull, I think this will be right up your alley, but it should appeal to a lot of surf fans in general.

A few weeks ago Amphibian Man released his 4th LP in the span of a year called "Pyramids". In 2016 he has released something nearly every month, and surprisingly they even seem to improve. During that span of time, he has gone from somebody that piqued my interest to "who the hell is this guy???". So I figured maybe I should just send him an email.

Two weeks after releasing their Speed Power Turbo Racer EP, Amphibian Man have YET ANOTHER release. This is about as easy of a write-up as it gets: heavy surf covers of songs from the Contra Nintendo game. It's as awesome as it sounds, and it's a free download.

Amphibian Man released an LP less than three months ago, so I certainly wasn't expecting more from them, but I'm glad we got this one. "Speed Power Turbo Racer" also happens to be the name of all four tracks on this, and they all get the point across - this is 100% about speed and power to an almost overwhelming extent. Once you get settled a little bit, there are actually some good melodies driving these songs, and at 4 tracks it's over before it's too much -- unless you find it's too much immediately! Really fun EP from these guys and it's completely free to download.