7" Singles Spotlight

7” Singles Spotlight

Satan’s Pilgrims

Taco Truck / Neahkahnie

Double Crown / Hidden Volume

I always look forward to new Satan’s Pilgrims music, a band that seems to be reenergized and commited to extending their long and storied career. Their new music is just as full of life as songs from 25 years ago. This single has a good looking sleeve with bold colors and graphics. Liner notes are in Spanish, so they’re not much help to me. On these recordings, there’s little stereo imaging, except for a slight split on the rhythm guitars.

“Taco Truck” is an uptempo chugalugger. The opening notes suggest another song, but I can’t quite put my finger on it. After that, the dance beat propels onward, with steady 1/8th notes in the bass and rhythm guitars. This number adheres to a pop song format with a well developed bridge and short lead break.

“Neahkanie” is slower and darker, with an open arrangement so you can hear the big, natural room sound. Overall it has an epic feel, big as the mountain it was named for. Great song and really evocative of the trad sixties sound.

Satan’s Pilgrims

Splashdown / Dr. Mortis

Hi-Tide Recordings

Another excellent double A sider from Satan’s Pilgrims, who are building their catalog toward another singles compilation in a few years. More great cover art, this time with busty aliens. This single has a brighter fidelity than Taco Truck, so the instruments are more distinct, but the stereo pan remains minimal.

“Splashdown” is based on a repetitive riff in the verses and non-melodic call and response in the choruses. Big reverb tank kicks throughout are the hook. The whole song has a great flow and seems to be over way to soon.

“Dr. Mortis” is a creepy deal with a wheezy keyboard setting the tone over a locked down mid tempo groove. The layered guitars find their space, coming together for unison lines, but mostly sticking to the surf approved arrangement of one wet damped rhythm and the other more forward with the melody. I love how the song ends mid fade. I’m sure this song made it to quite a few Halloween play lists this year.

The Victors

Tinker Tailor / Taking You Down

Self Released - no web presence
I’ve never heard this band before, and the single was given to me because “I might like it.” I do! It immediately presents itself as late 60’s Raspberries power pop, though I’m sure their influences are much more obscure than my musical knowledge. I always prefer black vinyl, but I have to say that the clear vinyl is really swank. Great attention to details in the sound and presentation.

“Tinker Tailor” keeps the strong lead vocal out front, dripping with swagger. Crunchy guitars and Moon-y drums keep the song popping. It’s a got a real full sound.

Wow- the first few bars of “Taking You Down” are real ear candy. This song is much more modern than the A side, the melody flattens out, but the song blows up when the guitar solo enters. There’s a lot going on here, headphones are a must.

The Surfrajettes

Party Line / Toxic

Hi-Fi Recordings

The Surfrajettes have an image and authenticism that has brought them, immediately, to the fore of modern surf music. At this point, the mantle is theirs, if they want it. But released music has been slow in coming from the group which is now at least three years old. Seems like they have a crafty Svengali telling them that less is more, keep the people hungry, etc.  But, I expect that they have a really high level of quality control and choose to be careful about how they present themselves.

“Party Line” is a song poised to pop out of your speakers, with a long, nicely building intro that establishes the fun before the guitar melody comes in for the verse. If you expect a simple tune, you’ll be surprised to hear a dark bridge, then some nifty two guitar interplay, syncopated stops and finally a bass and drum breakdown in the outro. This song has a flow.

I’m happy to say that I’m not familiar with the original version of “Toxic” so I can take this version on it’s own merits. There are parts of this song that are delicious, especially the intro, the chorus, the pre-chorus with the hooks and the little solo. There’s a couple other parts that seem kinda stiff, like The Surfrajettes are trying to adhere to closely to a vocal arrangement. But, by my fourth listen, I can see how it all holds together. The guitar tones on this song are absolutely fantastic. Also, I see that the video for this song has a combined viewing of 7 million or so, so that makes The Surfrajettes THE BIGGEST SURF BAND IN THE WORLD.

Whateverglades

Side A -Player / Your Good Girl’s Gonna Go Bad

Side B - What’d I Ever Do to You / Two More Bottles of Wine

No Egrets Records

Whateverglades is a Bay Area country band that rocks. (Country rock is something entirely different, right?) I don’t really have the country music vocabulary to be able to compare Whateverglades to other artists, so I won’t insult them, but I’m sure there’s other people doing this sort of shit-kicking, seems like a fun genre. They’re a great unit, just fantastic players all around, and they’re playing mostly originals. This 7” is packed with great music!

“Player” is a salty, Stonesy groover, with a strong lead vocal and lyric, playful and exuberant, this is a radio ready hit (if radio still existed.)

“Your Good Girl’s Bone Bad” has a two step roll and Duane Eddy guitar lick pushing an empowered lyric, in the tradition of country honk that is defiant out of necessity.

“What I’d Ever Do To You” opens with a nod to Nancy Sinatra’s “Boots”, and the vocal is just as expressive. Though the lyric is focused on the singer’s entrapment, she’s clearly going to be moving on soon.

Whateverglades are unafraid to draw comparisons with Emmylou Harris' as they take on her "Two More Bottles of Wine". That's dicey when a legend's song is so well know, but they make it their own, rocking it out and picking up the tempo a little. I thank them for not ending with a ballad (trying to show their range and sensitivity and such.)

The Kilaueas - "Touch My Alien" LP review

The Kilaueas

“Touch My Alien”

LP on Allscore  

CD on Double Crown Records  (available January 2019)

Listen and Download from Bandcamp.com   

A new Kilaueas album is always an anticipated and warmly greeted event. They’ve had a long career and earned well deserved love for their over the top live shows and consistently high-quality recordings. Their international touring has helped spread the legend, and Ralf Kilauea has big personality, whether he’s combing his hair mid-song, being an MC at the Surfer Joe Festival or pounding schnitzel with a Fender while wearing a bunny suit in YouTube videos. In social media, he’s outspoken and not afraid to take on surf music’s sacred cows or lampoon elitists. 

Following Ralf’s lead is an unbelievably talented and tight unit with longtime colaboraters Tom Kilauea on guitar, Jaque Kilauea on bass, and for the first time on a Kilaueas long player, Perzi Perzborn on drums. Perzi is a veteran of the German alt rock scene, and has toured the world over with his band Plan B. He is solid, sure-footed and inventive, as are all the guys. The sense of humor The Kilaueas exude has a way of coloring the band’s music, which bubbles with optimism and unexpected delights. Just look at the song titles and you’ll know these guys keep a positive perspective.

Musically, one thing that immediately sets The Kilaueas apart is that the second guitar, rather than playing a straight rhythm pattern, will often play a repetitive riff behind the lead, and engage in frequent call an response with the lead. By not mucking up the sonic space with constant 8th notes, there’s room in the arrangements to hear subtleties. Another trademark is the brevity and focus of the songs, not a shred of unnecessary fluff here. I didn’t review all of the 17 songs here (yes, you get your money’s worth!) but there’s isn’t a dinker in the bunch, this album is a blast!

Highlights from Side A:

A really strong opener with “The Ace of Space,” a heavily caffeinated rocker that, aside from everything else going on within it, has one of the coolest drum fills you’re likely to have ever heard. “Why Do Fools Fall in Lava” (great title) is tuneful and hooky, like a conversation between two lovers convincing each other to elope, and embark on a wondrous life together. Such drama! “The Twang Files” heaps menace over a dragging pace with spy themes heavy on the melodic minor scale. “Pe Langa Plopii Fara Sot” is chamber surf, starting out traditionally before the guitars dampen to elegant pizzicato– I can imagine dancers at a show having to invent waltz steps for this one. “R.F.T.P.B.T.O.N.R.” (they should make a contest to guess what those initials stand for) is the epic of this disc. It’s a slow, dark, majestic grinder with wonderful, completely analog sounding space effects, that builds and builds.

And the very strong B Side:

If “The Dark Wave Swells” is meant to poke fun at the Bambi Molesters album title, it’s surely an honor for them to have such a great song written in homage. “Touch My Alien,” isn’t space themed as you might imagine, but alien in the original meaning. The use of middle eastern scales, which even though, as surf music fans, we’ve heard in a thousand other songs, still sounds foreign and mysterious. (And then they hit you with a completely unexpected bridge.) I’m not sure why “Getaway Board” isn’t called “Imperial Surf Troopers” as suggested by the spoken introduction, maybe they're saving that title for a future song, but it’d be a bang up song even if it were called “Poop.” Last year’s hit single, “The Men from M.E.N.S.C.H.” appears here in a re-recorded version, losing none of the original’s vigor, and the addition of maniacal laughter spooks up the bridge (brilliant idea!) “Zambezi Nocturne” is sexy surf slow jam, filled out with vibraphone and congas, for those intimate moments that pop up 3/4 of the way through an instrumental album. “A Song Called Horse” leans toward Spaghetti Western, or may Spätzle Western in this case. I love the background vocals in the last verse. Following after is a reprise of “Horse” with acoustic rhythm and whistling for the lead, a very tasty finish to this delightful album.

The Imperial Surf Troopers do recon at George Lucas's Industrial Light and Magic:

The Men from M.E.N.S.C.H. video