One of the things I like about instrumental music is that you're free to craft your own narrative from the music. This is still the case with Los Surfer Compadres' new album, but they've given you a lot of thought pieces to help you along on their album art: surfing with swords, aliens, a cookout, a protest, a bird with a ring on its talon, an angry god...

This looks like the debut EP from Minnesota's Thee Sturgeons, and they have a lot of fun with it. The most straight-forward surf is "Giant Squid Attack" which already has some fun tradeoffs between guitar parts, but tracks like "Sand Dune" is where I think they're really coming from. Surrounding its middle-eastern flair, is a surprisingly loud fuzzy bass bubbling into a weirdo bellydancing beat with farfisa hovering all around.

While I think it has gotten better in the 2010s, I think it's understated how often poor sound engineering has held back an otherwise decent surf record. What we have here is the opposite story. Genki Genki Panic's previous releases weren't hampered by their production, but "Spooky Fingers" makes an amazing impression in an instant, setting a brand new idea of what this band is about.

Les Tigres du Futur have a sound unto themselves, yet familiar enough for the impact to be immediate. As much as this is a guitar-centric site, they mostly serve as the crunchy, grinding infantry force. Leading the charge is the whirlwind keyboard, which deftly straddles both psych/prog mystery and adventure and a hip-shaking mod beat. If that doesn't sound very surf, it's because it's not; I don't hear a shred of Dick Dale, Ventures or even Shadows in this -- MAYBE Davie Allan or Link Wray but only because I'm looking for it. It's instrumental rock & roll though, no arguing it.

Two weeks after releasing their Speed Power Turbo Racer EP, Amphibian Man have YET ANOTHER release. This is about as easy of a write-up as it gets: heavy surf covers of songs from the Contra Nintendo game. It's as awesome as it sounds, and it's a free download.

Though the Phantom Operators never keep you waiting long for more material, this is the second full-length from the Tennessee-based group. When listening to them, there's one word that comes to mind: desolate. The guitars go on and on, but with a bit of a melancholy and not so much of that California brightness. It fits the desert theme that runs thoughout much of the Phantom Operators' material.

Here are 11 originals from Italy's Surfoniani. They've got upright bass, some very drippy guitar and drums, which gel into a bright and sunny modern trad sound. They've got a fair amount of beach party shakers like "Bikini", "Mai Tai Girl", and "Tiki Twist" though also a few cooler ones like "Red Waves". Give it a listen!

Amphibian Man released an LP less than three months ago, so I certainly wasn't expecting more from them, but I'm glad we got this one. "Speed Power Turbo Racer" also happens to be the name of all four tracks on this, and they all get the point across - this is 100% about speed and power to an almost overwhelming extent. Once you get settled a little bit, there are actually some good melodies driving these songs, and at 4 tracks it's over before it's too much -- unless you find it's too much immediately! Really fun EP from these guys and it's completely free to download.

Les Surfsonics play with a little distortion here and there but a traditional mindset. Most of these are covers, but played with gusto and a good sense of fun. I'm kind of surprised that they keep a steady pace for most of them, as their fastest song "Tidal Wave" works really well! It's their first recording, and it's a solid foundation for where they might go from here.

I don't know too much about Kozyol - despite being based in Portaldn, I'm guessing at least one of their members is Russian, which would explain why some of these songs are in what I assume to be Russian. Definitely pretty funny for me, writing this on a trip to the nation of Georgia and having just gotten back from the Stalin museum. That really doesn't have anything to do with anything.