The Aqua Barons

Gremmy Awards 2020: Best Trad Surf Record

Best Trad Surf

These days garage bands with a little bit of reverb on their vocals are called surf bands. Thankfully, there are still plenty of excellent groups out there that know what surf really sounds like. The following bands aren't aiming to reinvent anything, they're all about making great instrumentals with that irresistable sound cooked up in the 1960s.

This was a good year for trad surf groups and an interesting one. Most of the groups below are sort of rising stars of the scene who made their initial appearance only in recent years, without much presence from the more legendary 90's era groups. Here are what I believe to be the standouts.

Tags: 

Bandcamp Friday Review Roundup: November Edition

King Pelican - East Meets West

It's another Bandcamp Friday which means 100% of your money goes to artists, none of it to poor ol' bandcamp, some of it to Paypal. This is probably going to be a shorter one because a) there were a lot of releases but a lot of them were Halloween singles, b) there weren't a whole of of LPs and c) I'm kind of behind on prepping for the finale of the top 100 surf records of the 2010s.

But anyway, here's some standouts

Tags: 

The Top Surf Records of the 2010s: 80-61

Top Surf Records of the 2010s: 80-61

Here are the next 20 selections from our chosen by surf fans. Admittedly, as with the vote counts weren't quite high enough to determine heirarchy easily, so my own input certainly comes into play, though things will get more clear-cut as we go. Enjoy!

Tags: 

The Aqua Barons release Southeast Stompers

The Aqua Barons - Southeast Stompers

After 6 years and only two tracks on a Green Cookie compilation to show for it, Greece's The Aqua Barons have released their first LP. Though drawing on trad sounds, there's some very distinct creativity in here that really stand out as their own: from the loosely floating lead guitar in "the Lonely Siren", to a killer mix of fuzz and surf guitar in "Harbour Love" and some unhinged wildness on "Abandon Ship". The closer "Last Sunset" is a fun track as well, starting as cooled-off drifter but building into a roar.

Tags: 

Subscribe to RSS - The Aqua Barons