Instro is imaginative and open-ended, and the album art can absolutely affect the way we listen to and interpret an album. Here are some of my favorites from this year.

Honorable Mentions

Hypnotzar - Cold Streams of Taiga

Surf is no longer the same music that the kids in California were making. It's drawn in influences from all over the place to make its own more open sound. Some of these bands seek to establish new boundaries in what instrumental rock & roll can be, some just make the sound that makes sense to them. Here are the ones that stood out most to me, in no particular order.

Though I really do try to stay on top of all major surf releases as they come out, there are plenty that slip by my notice and some I plum forget to talk about. So I'll do them all at once because that's somehow less daunting to me than doing them individually. If I'm missing anything let me know, I'm definitely going to reference this when I build my list of surf releases from 2016.

Said the Ripper - The Hanging at Barbed Wire (Released in May)