After 2 EPs with similarly crude album art, this very persistanly robot supremacist band has put out their first LP. While one might expect clean sinewave tones from a robot band, Tsunamibots actually have a pretty trashy tone with occasional sound effects thrown in. Song structures are simple, easy to bounce along to and despite their forceful message, they still know how to have fun. Take the lighthearted beach party number "Robotic Meltdown", which even cuts loose enough to include handclaps -- presumably made with repurposed human meat.

The first LP from Operation: Diamond Bikini follows the example laid forth by their first EP: generally fast and forceful surf with dash of quirky sense of humor thrown in. That humor usually takes the form of sound clips, which compliment the music well and don't go overboard. Guitar tone is generally pretty clear and staccato and have the same frantic stumbling feel as their countrymen The Messer Chups.

This is the second LP from Winnipeg's The Catamounts. Though there's plenty here for the guitar nuts among us, there's an equal helping of organ - not the fun, mod go-go kind, but more of a crazed, mysterious, atmospheric kind. So now it's sounding like a horror surf record, and yeah it could probably sit well on your halloween playlist, but they're more about intrigue and mystery - hence covers of The Sicilian Clan and You Only Live Twice. It's not too deep in the fog -- there's a cover of The Wedge that isn't too far off the map.

The Insanitizers were nice enough to send me Guitar Fun well in advance of its release date and said something about having time to take it all in. They weren't kidding. There's 23 tracks here with musical styling spanning straight ahead surf, Joe Meekish instrumentals, rautalanka, a harpsichord tune (I realize it's probably not actually a harpsichord), and... man, I don't know what. True to their name, it does sometimes feel like you're going slightly insane.

Team Void ain't as mean as they look. Sure, their guitars often have that deep horror tone to them, but packaged along with that Lucha mask is a set of vibrant mariachi horns. I mean, give the opener "I Am Six" a listen and all you'll hear is "Party!". It's got a lot going on, and kinda reminds me of Los Plantronics. Now don't get me wrong, there's plenty of horror surf stuff in here, like on the title track "Robot Killer", but I think secretly monsters like to have a good time same as everybody else.

As far as I can tell, this is a digital-only one. Give it a listen!

Not to be confused with the Beyonderers, these Houstonians play sax-heavy instros with a wacked-out exploratory attitude. The opening track "Woo-loo-loo" sets the example well, with some great twangy surf guitar at a medium tempo, that delves into a pretty unhinged sax solo. They're never all that heavy, but sway between dark and mysterious to fonky on "kyu-jyu-jyu" to plain ol' nutso on "Bananas con Platano". If you dug the latest release from Beninghove's Hangmen you're in the right neighborhood.

Blackball Bandits have previously released two demos that I had argued were too good to be called demos. They had a decent reason though: they were incomplete, with parts overdubbed or drum machines used. Well now they're a full band and have rerecorded their songs onto this EP.

Even if most of their songs feature vocals, you can pretty reliably hear a reverbed out surf twang underneath the Dustaphonics. Well, they went ahead and made things easy for us instro nuts and slapped together a compilation of all their instro cuts. Though I'm not too well-versed in their discography, I don't believe any of these are new cuts.

For nearly 20 years Stereophonic Space Sound Unlimited have been putting out records that are rock solid and sound like nobody else. This is #7 and while this is no exception to that rule, it is slightly different. The space age sound is toned down a bit, and in its place I hear a bit more of an Italian soundtrack vibe and often a lot more electronic, often in a bedroomy nostalgic way.

So as instro fans we're only really interested in the first 6 tracks of this by BEER, all of whose songs are dedicated to different beers. This belongs a bit in the avant-garde/jazz-surf category that's been slowly picking up steam lately, with plenty of saxophone and some dissonant tones amidst more freeform song structure than we get from most surf. It's pretty overtly rooted in surf though, even riffing on "Surf Rider" in their song "Bohemia". This style isn't for everybody, but I think it's a pretty fun take.