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.

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.

The Concussions hit an amazing middle ground between being absolutely crammed with hooks and being understated. What I find is that this combination makes for an absurd amount of repeat spins in the car, especially as background music. Now, I hate talking about instro as background music, but when everybody finds themselves whistling it when they get out, I think that's OK. The Concussions are able to grab that simpler form of riff-based song-writing that seems left in the 60s and they do it effortlessly.

The Supersonicos have a project going: every month they release two EPs full of covers of Uruguayan music until they get to 10 EPs.

This is the first LP from Tidal Baby (formerly known as Grimm Futures) seemingly out of Canada? Their label is, and I swear I hear a bit of a Huevos Rancheros twang to them, so that's my guess. 7 instrumentals and one vocal track with a great loud-as-hell guitar sound complimented well by the bass. They crank out a lot of noise for a 3-piece. This is recorded live and I do think that holds them back a bit, but the songs and the sound are solid and it's definitely worth the free download from bandcamp. Looking forward to hearing more from them.

It brings a smile to my face to see that Sandy Nelson is still at it... and he really wanted a smile out of this record. Unless I missed something, the last we heard from him was 2008's Nelsonized by Sandy Nelson and the Sin City Termites. If you haven't heard it, stop everything and do that by any means necessary. It's louder and meaner than anything you've heard from him and it's great all the way through.

Italy meets Brazil! Surfer Joe and The Dead Rocks were touring Brazil together and recorded this impromptu session while doing an interview. Now we get to hear it! 2 tracks of trad surf, one laid back and one bouncy and fun.

They've got a video that explains it in a much more enjoyable way than I can do.

Robotron is a project by Bjørn Hovland featuring 7 tracks of monstrous fuzzed out tough surf. While a lot of these projects where one member writes and plays many parts tend to sound stripped down, this gives no indication based on the music itself. Partially because this was hardly a bedroom recording: Bjorn hails from Norway, the album was mixed in Brazil and mastered in Seattle!

The Grave Diggers play generally aggressive punk-influenced surf with tinges of horror surf. Those tinges are especially noticeable in the back-to-back Ghastly Ones covers. But this is a pretty fun record, they definitely know how to keep up a great energy and pump out a lot of sound for a threesome. Ontop of nice guitarism, they have a bunch of small little tweaks, sound effects, and quirks that add another level of interestingness. This isn't exactly the flashiest cover art -- with something a little more noticeable I think they'd deserve to get noticed.