This is the stuff that doesn't seem to fit into any other category. The stuff staking out a sound of their own. Not always difficult listening, but definitely fresh.

I only just recently found The Beyonderers (note the extra "er") and their excellent debut "Fourth Wave" and the new one is full of the same slammin' Astro-man energy. Unfortunately it appears they've lost their keyboardist, which made for a great electric howl on the last one that set them further apart from Man... or Astro-man? but the truth is this is surf: a lot of bands will sound similar and a lot of us are happy to eat up whatever sounds familiar, especially in the case of MOAM. Count me among them. The important thing is that the Beyonderers bring the energy and the power.

4 months of silence seems like an eternity from Amphibian Man, but he's back with a Spaghetti Western angle. He's learning how to slow down a bit, not just in terms on his release schedule, but on songs like the very steady "Ghost Town" and "Skeleton Pass". That said, there's plenty of action in here on songs like "Train Robbery".

The latest from Marshall and the Martins keeps it pretty trad surf - despite banjo in the second track and apparently some bagpipes somewhere. Though that second track "Weston" is a good one, the more it sticks to a trad surf sound the more I found myself enjoying the songs. "Bundamba", "Mulliwippi" and "Maxwin" all did a great job of tapping into a 60's locked-in mindset and surf mood, while the beach party numbers like "Steley" and "Melton" have that squeaky clean sound that a bedroom/collaborative album such as this one often has.

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.