Rad is a dumb term I use to describe more loud, aggro, punk influenced surf. I chose it because it rhymes with trad.

Instro music today is a wonderful thing. Whereas the big surge of surf music rode a wave of retro novelty, this music now sits comfortably in obscurity with its creators playing for themselves and their peers, free to let creativity take them wherever it may. Many new surf bands are moored much closer to modern surf groups than vintage, and that's a great thing. We're building, spreading, getting weirder and more interesting with each year.

Trad surf bands will happily fly the banner of being a surf band. Their albums are typically a simple selection of good, upbeat songs and are happy with that humble scope. It's not 100% cut-and-dry, and I'm bending my own rules on a few bands here, but these are records that make me happy to be a surf nut. And a side note: I'm including bands that might not strive for a California 60's sound but are otherwise retro-mimicking.

Surf has always had strong visual iconography attached to nudge how we interpret these instrumentals. We've built and expanded upon that just as we've transformed the music over the years. Here are some of the records where the art really stood out to me this year.

The Gremmy Awards are Storm Surge of Reverb's yearly awards recognizing some of the most oustanding surf and instro albums of the year. Keep in mind that Storm Surge of Reverb is really just one person, and so for the most part these are just the tastes of one idiot. That idiot has listened to an awful lot of this music, but certainly not all of it. I try to balance it out a little bit by contacting a few people that I know are big surf superfans and whose opinions I respect and having them write Guest Gremmys. Also, these awards are really supposed to be the cream of the crop.

There aren't too many people doing awards for surf music which makes me very self-conscious about my choices. The Gremmys are just my opinions and some albums that didn't make an impact for me meant a lot to others, not to mention ones that I loved but just didn't make it to the top tier. So here are some other voices from people that I know are listening to a lot of surf and whose opinions I respect, and hopefully they'll cover some of the ground that I didn't.

When I do this deep dive into the past year of surf there are inevitably other things of note that simply listing the top albums can't really cover. That's what this is for.

There are some records that clearly stem from surf but that have gone so far into a new direction that they feel like they shouldn't be considered next to actual surf records. That very fuzzy line is basically up to my whim.

This category is for albums that are unmistakably surf, but would not be mistaken for vintage. This was a tough category this year and it was tough choosing a winner. A lot of these were also really pushing the envelope, and it was hard to decide what belongs here and what belongs in the Way-Out Instro category.

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.