You gotta be careful looking for surf rock on Burger Records. They're home to an awful lot of the bands that are muddying up the term. You know, garage bands with a lot of reverb on the vocals, stuff derived from Wavves, Black Lips etc. And right from the first track one might think that's the case here, with summery girl-group-garage sing-a-long vocals, but I urge you to stay! The next track is "Swedish Fish", a rippin' surf instro with punchy, splashy percussion free of pretention and all about fun.

Wow! It's been 7 years since Atomic Mosquitos released their last LP Meltdown, and I've played that one an awful lot in the meantime. I was curious what Bug Music for Bug People was going to sound like. I seem to remember an email a long time ago where they told me that they weren't as happy with Meltdown as I was, and really what CAN you expect a band to sound like 7 years later?

When Os Brutus released their last EP, I concluded by saying I was looking forward to hearing more of them. I didn't have to wait long! Os Brutus have a great dirty tone to them but stay solidly within the surf realm. Some of the tracks from their EP have made it onto this one, but with a full album they get to breathe a little bit more, try different tempos.

Well, sometimes my all-seeing surf eye doesn't see things when they come out. And I think I'd be remiss to not mention them anywhere on the site, so we're playing catch-up here.

This EP found its way into the word via a great viral video of a jarring way to wake up in the morning.

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 Tiki Creeps' debut last year was definitely a standout, so I'm glad they've kept that momentum up by releasing a followup. They haven't shaken up the formula much: a solid mix of cool low-tempo numbers (perhaps the tiki part of their name) and a few with the guitars howlin'. "Ride Creeps Ride" is actually a bit of a twistin' number, something missing from their last one.

Ever since they released the video for Tunak Tunak Tun on Youtube over a year ago, I've been getting more and more excited for the release of The Tomorrowmen's new album. Looks like tomorrow became today hur hur. Their Double Crown Records debut "It's About Time" was the exactly the sort of forward-thinking brand of instro that keeps this genre alive. It's immediately apparently that that spirit was kept intact on Futourism, and that a tremendous amount of thought and love was poured into this.

We've got four songs from the sci-fi horror group the Hithcocks, absolutely drenched in reverb, complete with some echoey and ominous synthesizers and spooky ghastly voices. They choose darkness over speed, with most of these songs finding more of a zombie-shuffle pace. Dig the retro sci-fi video then give it a spin on bandcamp

Well here's something else for ya. Surfin' Krautlifornia is an odd mix of synthesizers, sound effects, psychedelic meanderings, and strange thoughts standing on a foundation of surf guitar bubbling underneath. With an airplane, a storm trooper, graffitti, and a cool-lookin' dude wearing shades on the cover, I'm not even going to try to piece together what they're after. Maybe it's just to get you to approach this thing with some curiosity.

Apparently they've got cassette and vinyl copies out there, but you can also listen to it the ol' bandcamp.