The fourth LP from Coffin Daggers is perhaps a bigger turn than having a google-eyed bongo-playing demon on the cover: it's a cover record! Of eleki tunes! For those unacquainted, Eleki is a Japanese instrumental rock & roll music, highly Ventures influenced, typically with very sharp, staccato guitar tones. Admittedly, Eleki is a bit of a weak point in my instro knowledge -- I always kind of hoped I'd go to Japan and blindly buy anything that vaguely fit the bill and learn from there -- but generally good starting points are Takeshi Terauchi and Yuzo Kayama.

The first track of Sunken City gives you a good cue of the album to follow: atmospheric lead-in giving a sense of setting and narrative, some vocals reinforcing that, then breaking into unmistakable surf guitar.

I'm sure a lot of y'all have seen that viral video of a guy playing metal songs without distortion only to reveal surf songs underneath. I'm sure somebody thought what many have yelled "Play some Slayer". And here we are: Reign in Blood, done as a surf record, with a crudely drawn, crudely conceived band name "Surfyer". I love it.

Regretfully it wasn't until the end of the year that I actually sunk my teeth into The Isotopes' 2016 release Overstay Their Welcome. Looks like they're already back with a new one, and this time I'm paying attention.

Aaron and the Burrs have been quiet for a little bit... missing out on some synergy opportunities with the broadway hit Hamilton! Eh, probably not.

The Coffin Daggers' self-titled LP was a mainstay on Storm Surge of Reverb back in the WESU days. It struck a really great balance between loud, thundering power and traditional surf sensibilities. As I've suggested about The Madeira's first record, it would be very difficult for them to ever dethrone that effort due to my impenetrable personal bias.

Here's something a little different. Black River Manifesto take a slow, noisy approach to surf. It's pained and dischordant, at times maybe even a little jazzy (the upright acoustic bass helps there), and sometimes bluesy (their last EP was a lot bluesier).

OK I think the pun here is that normally Huckleberry Finn has Two N's, whereas this band has one making them sea creatures. I don't know a whole lot about these guys, other than that they seem to have been playing shows around NY state for one or two years now. They've got the full range of purchasing options available: LP, Cassette, CD, and digital download. You can any of those from their bandcamp page.

The Tarantinos NYC have a new LP out chock full of film soundtrack surf covers. They've been at it for a while though, and they're starting to dig pretty damn deep - a few covers that I certainly haven't heard! They've also written a few originals! I've only heard a few of the samples on CDbaby, but it sounds like it's got a good punch and a good traditional surf sound.

I always thought surf and noise rock should hang out more, and that's certainly the case here. ROMANTIC aren't normally a surf group, there's usually a lot more noise and a lot more goth and sometimes a few words, but underneath it all I can confirm that there are surf songs on this EP: especially Misirlou under "blacksurf ii". Check the bandcamp stream out and let me know what you think