Hailing from Ontario, Supertoke have a sorta fun, off-kilter Shadowy Men vibe. That's about all I got on these guys!

For a while this one was only available in person or in Spanish record stores, but it looks like there's now a few more options. They don't drop their excellent surf twang, but they head out for that lonely, desolate western tone and pace. More quality stuff from a quality group.

Surf is usually a very analog type of music, but Mexico's Los Jinetes Del Terror chose to ignore that. The entire record has an electric buzz (and fuzz) to it. They're not afraid to put their keyboards, drum machine or any digital effects front and center. But make no mistake, the guitars are loud, fuzzy and frantic as hell, and the end result is nicely balanced I think. It might need a bit for surf fans to adjust to, but sometimes those are the best records in the end. 

Vacations hail from the ever-musical Athens, Georgia. Nightmare Beach appears to be their debut EP and it's got 4 quick-picked, adrenaline fueled instros on it for you to sink your teeth into.

Wild Cat Stomp is a nice little one-man production from one half of Momo-Sei, a lighthearted rock duo from Japan. I hadn't heard of them before but I got a kick out of this video...

It's been a good while since Los Plantronics' excellent 2011 LP "Organic Voodoo Soup", so they've gotten the ball rolling again by releasing a new 7" called Shortnin Bread. The namesake of the 7" is the same Shortnin' Bread you've heard plenty of times (with vocals) but it also includes "Navajo" which is exactly the sort of big-production high-energy surf I love to hear from these guys.

There's a video for Shortnin Bread on the way, but perhaps more importantly they've promised an LP called "Surfin' Times" later this year!

Thankfully not much similarity to the similarly named Lou Reed record, Knoxville's Phantom Operators have been drip-feeding single songs for a few months now and have scooped them all up into a 9-song LP. Some songs like Tiki Patrol and Charlie's Point are pretty trad, but it finds a darker place as it moves on. Definitely get a bit of an Insect Surfers/Derangers vibe.

Hodaddys play some fun-in-the-sun trad surf with a bit of a hot rod touch to it. Gotta love all the Rat Fink styled art this band has courtesy of Chainsaw Chuck. Based on the samples at newreleasesnow.com, this one's got some great production on it, sounds loud and big like it ought to.

Here we go, 2015! The Sub-Vectors gave me a preview of a few tracks off their new album back in December and I found them mighty tasty. It's big (huge even), loud, of the MOAM school of guitar tone, and really packs a punch. The name (and art) of the CD comes from how Soviet music bootleggers would sometimes press records onto X-Rays.

Here's one from a continent you don't see too often in instro: The Moths hail from South Africa and their sound reflects the look of the album cover here pretty well. It's raw, ragged, and punk-styled. This three-song live EP and their LP from last year are free to download