Punk – 7th Level Music

Dead Pioneers team up with The Interrupters to tell us we’re “Never Alone.”

Dead Pioneers, the Indigenous fronted band from Denver, are back with another transmission from their forthcoming album Wagon Burner, due for release June 26th via Hassle Records.

Titled “Never Alone,” the new single features a vocal collaboration with Aimee Interrupter, vocalist for Californian ska-punk sensations, The Interrupters.“I wish I could express how proud we are about this collaboration, as well as how grateful we are to The Interrupters in their willingness to work with us on this one,” declares frontman Gregg Deal. “In all honesty, this has been in the works in conversation and execution for several years and can’t wait to share the very personal backstory on this.“The very real and palatable feeling of not belonging and finding solace through music, community and found family is something so many of us can understand on multiple levels. I’m a fan of The Interrupters, but also know through their music and first-hand how genuine they are in their mutual feeling and understanding of what this music does. ‘Never Alone’ is a homage to that familiar feeling of finding purpose in one’s self. Finding it through accessible means like music, community and the shared experiences associated with it. To share this with The Interrupters, Aimee, Kevin, Justin and Jesse is a dream. These are four fantastic people that don’t just understand these ideas, but stand by it in their love and compassion for the very human feelings of needing to find your place in the world. We’re super proud to share space with them as family.”

“Never Alone” is a life-affirming, rousing, air punching celebration of community and friendship, with Aimee’s vocals adding a deliciously addictive melodic hook to the song’s stomping groove.

“To hear Aimee’s voice in the chorus is overwhelming, to be sure,” says Gregg. “Besides the fact that she has a powerhouse of a voice, I hear the sound of a six-year friendship with Aimee and the Bivona boys with my own family, that predates Dead Pioneers. I am so grateful to this friendship, especially watching Aimee and my oldest kid Sage become close. When we say ‘Never Alone’, we mean it, knowing that the band, The Interrupters, are friends, hell, family, that truly believe these things along with us. I’m beyond grateful to share this with them, if not outwardly overwhelmed and emotional by it. What an incredible full circle moment.”

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[Thanks to Dan from Discipline PR.]

Dead Pioneers declare “No Kings” with their newest single.

Following their packed-out first EU and UK headline tour last month, Dead Pioneers, the Indigenous fronted band from Denver, are now preparing to unleash their third album, Wagon Burner, set for release June 26th via Hassle Records. Succeeding the album’s first statement with initial single “Nazi Teeth,” a powerful attack on the upsurge of the far right and white supremacists, Dead Pioneers are back with a second single, “No Kings,” that delivers an equally powerful punch to right wing politics.

“Last summer there were protests all over the United States called ‘No Kings’, in opposition of the current administration, the policies they’ve been implementing, and the rights they’ve been taking away from citizens,” explains frontman Gregg Deal. “While the issues are obvious, it’s important that we all say it out loud. It’s important that we show up and make our opinions known, that we won’t allow our inherent rights to be trampled upon for the benefit of the Epstein Class. Not unlike ‘Nazi Teeth’, ‘No Kings’ is meant to bring the points home,” he continues. “ICE, rights being taken away, mass shootings, greed over life, demonizing immigrants, black, brown and queer people, widened economic gaps by the Epstein class, and the sincere frustration Americans feel over this. While this is happening, we realize that the right-wing politics coming out of the United States is emboldening conservative right-wing politics all over the world. We are against dictators, authoritarian regimes, Nazis, fascism or any other power structure, political, social or otherwise that seek to take away the rights, freedoms or lives of human beings trying to live their life. To that, we keep it simple: NO KINGS.”

Dead Pioneers is rooted in a 2020 piece called The Punk Pan-Indian Romantic Comedy, a deeply personal work that dealt with Deal’s upbringing. Following an embryonic performance of the piece, Deal secured a grant to expand it to include music created especially for the work. “The idea was to mix spoken word with punk music,” explains Deal, who hooked up with drummer Shane Zweygardt and guitarist Joshua Rivers during lockdown and began kicking the concept around.

A miraculous, natural chemistry made this supposed one-off project an actual band almost as soon as they cut what became their 2023 eponymous debut album (“We approached it like I approach my visual art: execute quickly, first thought is best thought,” Deal says), but they didn’t necessarily take it seriously until, unexpectedly, the outside world did. “I was like, we’ve made this record – what should I do with it? Put it online?” Deal remembers. The response was vigorously positive and soon came demands to commit this noise to vinyl. A first thousand-copy pressing sold out in minutes. “So, then we pressed another thousand,” he adds, still marvelling at it all. “And then they were gone, too.”

What followed was “a series of strange accidents” that led to the group signing to Hassle, befriending Jello Biafra and touring with kindred spirits like Pennywise, Propaghandi, even Pearl Jam. “Punk-rock had made everything seem so accessible when I was a kid,” says Deal. “Like, simply having the balls to get up on stage and stage dive and then be carried off by people that become your best friends once they get your feet back on the ground.” Now, punk-rock was reaching out its hands to Dead Pioneers and pulling them onto larger and larger stages. The group returned that favour by simply getting better and better: their second album, 2025’s PO$T AMERICAN, was sharper, angrier, funnier than the debut, a riot riveted with punch-a-Nazi thrills.

And now, Wagon Burner, their fearsome third album. Described by Deal as “more collaborative”, it’s a heavier, harder but also more accessible set, vicious hooks scattered among the punk-rock melee and guest appearances by kindred spirits Cheap Perfume (on the righteous “Nazi Teeth”), The Interrupters (on the shout-a-long anthem “Never Alone”) and, bringing it back to the group’s beginnings, Sleaford Mods (on the searing slow-burn of “The Worst Among Us”). The world might be darkening by the day, but Dead Pioneers are rising to that miserable occasion, casting their empowering light into the gloom.

Follow Dead Pioneers here. Pre-order ‘Wagon Burner’ coming out June 26 via Hassle Records here.

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[Thanks to Dan from Discipline PR.]

The Real McKenzies drop a new single and a mom joke at the same time.

Vancouver’s Celtic punk legends The Real McKenzies return with “I Wanna Eat Sardines (With Yer Mother),” the first single from their upcoming album On Yer Bike, arriving May 29 on Stomp Records. Landing March 27, the track marks a new chapter for the long-running band and the first taste of their next full-length following the closing of Fat Wreck Chords. Fans of The Pogues, Dropkick Murphys, Flogging Molly, and Gogol Bordello will find plenty to raise a pint to here. Founded in 1992 by larger-than-life frontman and Scottish punk poet laureate Paul McKenzie, The Real McKenzies have spent more than three decades hauling their bagpipes, guitars, and battered touring van across continents. Along the way they’ve built a reputation as one of punk’s most relentless road warriors, delivering a wild collision of traditional Scottish folk and breakneck punk rock to generations of fans who know the difference between a ceilidh and a circle pit.

“I Wanna Eat Sardines (With Yer Mother)” arrives with the band’s trademark swagger fully intact. Equal parts pub anthem and cheeky Celtic mischief, the track barrels forward on roaring guitars, thunderous drums, and the unmistakable skirl of bagpipes, all wrapped around a chorus that practically demands to be shouted across a crowded barroom. It’s rowdy, irreverent, and proudly ridiculous in the best possible way, the sound of a band who know exactly how much fun punk rock can be when the pints are flowing and the pipes are blazing. The single offers the first taste of On Yer Bike, a thirteen-track blast of raucous Celtic punk that finds McKenzie sounding newly energized and the band tighter than ever. The album swings wildly through tales of love, history, literature, and outright lunacy, including the Sawney Bean trilogy, a trio of songs inspired by Scotland’s most infamous cannibal clan. Elsewhere, the band tackles everything from lyrical storytelling to pub-ready singalongs, with soaring bagpipes and heart-pounding rhythms anchoring every track.

Over their long and famously chaotic career, The Real McKenzies have shared stages with everyone from NOFX and Rancid to Flogging Molly, Metallica, and the late Shane MacGowan. Along the way they’ve carved out a legacy as pioneers of Celtic punk in North America, long predating the wave of bands that followed in their wake. Their music has appeared in films, video games, and countless sweaty clubs around the world, but their real reputation has always been built the old-fashioned way: relentless touring, roaring crowds, and songs made to be sung at the top of your lungs. More than thirty years on, The Real McKenzies remain exactly what they’ve always been: a hard-partying, hard-touring, bagpipe-blasting force of nature. If On Yer Bike proves anything, it’s that the fire still burns bright. With “I Wanna Eat Sardines (With Yer Mother)” leading the charge, the band once again raises the banner of Celtic punk high, somewhere between a Highland march and a barroom brawl, inviting the whole world to sing along.

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[Thanks to Chad at No Rules PR.]

Wheelchair Sports Camp team up with Jello Biafra and Radio Pete on their new single – “Make It Make Sense.”

Wheelchair Sports Camp is certainly not your average act. This genre bending, punk-powered hip-hop project is fronted by Kalyn Rose Heffernan – a wheelchair-using, profanely queer and tiny rapper, with a very distinctly high-pitched sense of humor. Backed by her gimp Greggy on drums, the band combines fantastic beats with an absolutely face-shredding live show. After playing shows everywhere they could, the band expanded into performance art, museum takeovers, politics, prison tours, permanent installations, theatre, film, and now the release of their newest album, oh imperfecta, on Alternative Tentacles Records.

They bring together contributions from Jello Biafra (twice), Radio Pete (who happened to come up with the name Dead Kennedys when Biafra was a teen in Boulder, CO, and this is their first time ever collaborating musically), Kimya Dawson (Moldy Peaches), Olivia Jean, Junia-T, Amy Goodman, and some honorary WSC members: Qknox, Michelle Rocqet, Wes Watkins, RAREBYRD$, and many more; to create 11 absolute bangers.

The album surges forward right from the opening track of “Make It Make Sense”, Heffernan takes your attention vocally and holds it there, while bouncing back and forth with Biafra. Only to embrace the raw punk rock honesty of “EAT MEAT!”. This unflinching honesty is carried throughout the album. Heffernan holds nothing back. No matter if WSC is dancing through classic hip-hop flows with “DENIM” or moshing through Olivia Jean’s rock riffs with Jello Biafra on “DEAD,” the vocals and the beats seamlessly bring the different influences together. All while giving us a glimpse into Heffernan’s chaotic life with recorded calls from Kalyn’s wild ass Mama K. as interludes throughout the album.

“In an attempt to unlearn my perfectionism and finish the damn album, I picked up the drums for the first time since middle school and wrote EAT MEAT! with Greggy on guitar. It was the most fun we’ve had and it instantly felt good enough for the first time maybe ever? We were on to something, … if every dude can play mediocre guitar, why can’t I play shitty drums?“ says Heffernan, “It freed me from having to be the best rapper and out-bar every rapper in the bar. Come to find out I’ve been overcompensating my whole life because I am genetically imperfecta. Osteogenesis imperfecta is the name of my brittle bones disease and I’m realizing more and more how my body has been the center of attention since birth. Described in dehumanizing, demoralizing, and very unbecoming ways, it’s no wonder I’ve always felt like I had to be the best. This album is a collection of songs from the past decade and finished because we simplified: oh imperfecta.”

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[Thanks to Dan at Discipline PR.]

Lambrini Girls punch rich elitists in the gut with “Cult of Celebrity.”

Brighton’s own Lambrini Girls, the explosive duo of Phoebe Lunny (vocals/guitar) and Selin Macieira (bass), share their new single ‘Cult of Celebrity’. From its opening guitar lick, the duo’s new song is a relentless, thrashing indictment of the dark underbelly and backdoor dealings of the world’s global elites that has been exposed in recent years.

On the new track the band say: “The age old tale, of selling your soul to the devil has been fabled accounts of high society for years. However due to recent events come to light- it turns out that the elite are very much actually, the devil incarnate, baby eating, pedos. What a fucking surprise! They had no souls to sell in the first place.”

‘The old world is dying and the new world struggles to be born: now is the time of monsters’ Antonio Gramsci (courtesy of Lambrini Girls)

The single is also accompanied by a music video directed by London-based filmmaker and director Harv Frost (The Last Dinner Party, Laufey).

Watch / Listen to ‘Cult of Celebrity’ HERE

Tour Dates

Sun 05 Apr 26 – Paaspop, Schijndel – Netherlands

Sat 11 Apr 26 – Coachella Valley, Indigo CA – United States

Sat 18 Apr 26 – Coachella Valley, Indigo CA – United States

Tue 21 Apr 26 – Variety Playhouse, Atlanta GA – United States

Wed 22 Apr 26 – The Orange Peel, Asheville NC – United States

Fri 24 Apr – 26 Warsaw, Brooklyn NY – United States SOLD OUT

Sun 26 Apr 26 – Paradise Rock Club, Boston MA – United States SOLD OUT

Mon 27 Apr 26 – Théâtre Beanfield, Montreal QC – Canada

Tue 28 Apr 26 – The Concert Hall, Toronto ON – Canada

Thu 30 Apr 26 – Metro, Chicago IL- United States SOLD OUT

Fri 01 May 26 Majestic Theatre, Detroit MI – United States

Sat 02 May 26 – The Vogue, Indianapolis IN – United States

Mon 04 May 26 – Delmar Hall, St. Louis MO – United States

Tue 05 May 26 – The Granada Theater, Lawrence KS – United States

Thu 21 May 26 – Bearded Theory, Derbyshire – United Kingdom

Sat 23 May 26 – Dot to Dot, Bristol – United Kingdom

Sun 24 May 26 – Dot to Dot, Nottingham – United Kingdom

Sat 06 Jun 26 – Primavera Sound, Barcelona – Spain

Fri 12 Jun 26 – Bonnaroo, Manchester TN) – United States

Sun 14 Jun 26 – Warped Tour, Washington DC- United States

Thu 25 Jun 26 – Patrick Henry Village, Heidelberg – Germany

Fri 26 Jun 26 – Vainstream Rockfest, Munster – Germany

Thu 09 Jul 26 – Musilac, Aix-Les Bains – France

Fri 10 Jul 26 – 2000trees Festival – Gloucestershire – United Kingdom

Mon 13 Jul 26 – Les Nuits De Fourviere, Lyon – France

Fri 17 Jul 26 – Malakoff Rock Festival, Nordfjordeid – Norway

Sat 18 Jul 26 – Bukta, Tromso – Norway – Norway

Fri 31 Jul 26 – All Together Now, Waterford – Ireland

Fri 07 Aug 26 – Boardmasters, Newquay – United Kingdom

Tue 11 Aug 26 – Sziget Festival, Budapest – Hungary

Thu 13 Aug 26 – Oya Festival, Oslo – Norway

Fri 14 Aug 26 – Way Out West, Gothenburg – Sweden

Sun 16 Aug 26 – Flow Festival – Helsinki – Finland

Fri 21 Aug 26 – Pukkelpop, Hasselt – Belgium

Sat 29 Aug 26 – Rock en Seine, Paris – France

Tickets available HERE

Keep your mind open.

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[Thanks to Amy at After Hours PR.]

Review: The Shits – Diet of Worms

Looking at that album cover, you might think at first glance that you were in for a folk record, or maybe a “goth country” album, but then you notice the title is Diet of Worms (possibly after the assembly in which Martin Luther was told to recant his writings and views or be labeled as a heretic – spoiler alert from the 16th century: He didn’t.) and the band’s name is The Shits and now you’re even more intrigued.

Then the opening dissonance of the first track, “In a Hell,” arrives and you’re locked in because you want to hear where this is going. The snarling vocals arrive while drums, bass, and guitars circle around you like angry hounds and you’re thinking, “Okay, let’s do this.” This goes on for over seven minutes and ratchets up the power for the whole album. You look at the album cover again and begin to think something bad has happened (or is still happening) in that house / barn…and, by the way, is the whole area on fire?

The Shits seem to believe the whole world is on fire, judging by the rumbling rage in every track. The guitars on “Tarrare” almost sound like the repetitive ramblings of a madman. “Then You’re Dead” sounds like a Stooges B-side covered in ashes and played on a turntable with a vulture perched next to it and using its beak for the needle. The bass line and drums hits on it are relentless.

Speaking of bass, the bass notes on “Change My Ways” are thick as tar. I think the song is about being pressured to change from every angle of society in this modern world: Eat this, do this workout, sleep in this position, take this supplement, listen to these podcasts, read this book, invest your money with me! It never ends unless you change another thing – the desire to change at all. Could The Shits be hiding a Zen lesson in the distortion and shouts?

There could be another one hidden in “Joyless Satisfaction.” The title alone could allude to the emptiness that often accompanies materialism and attachment. We buy and buy and buy and so often have remorse afterwards. The thrill of the purchase is soon replaced by the dread of having yet another thing to move, dust, or take up space. The same goes for doom-scrolling, influencer idolizing, and so many other things that take up our mind-space. The track’s guitar riffs are all jagged and rusty and likely to harm you if you’re not careful.

The title track is a gritty, nervous, writhing thing with an abrupt ending that catches you off-guard. “Thank You for Being a Friend” has a groove that, believe it or not, reminds me of Thin Lizzy. It’s not a cover of the Golden Girls theme song (which would be amazing), but I think is about both true and false friends, and how sometimes it’s difficult to figure out which is which. The album ends with the menacing “Three O’Clock in the Morning.” It feels like the sensation of stumbling home after a drunken brawl in a Waffle House parking lot, or the dread of waking up for another early shift, or coming back from one that ran late, or the lonely dread that sometimes creeps in when you wake up for no apparent reason. It yells and spits at you, creeps around you, pulls at you, and generally unnerves you.

The whole album does. That’s what it’s supposed to do, and why The Shits made it. It’s as unsettling as the album cover or being handed a bowl of worms to eat. It’s meant to shake you up and shake you out of the trap you don’t even know is around you.

One final note: You can’t be a band called “The Shits” and not be a solid, damn good band. It just wouldn’t work. You’d be written off as a joke band.

The Shits are no joke.

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[I’ll have joyful satisfaction if you subscribe.]

[Thanks to Dan at Discipline PR.]

The Shits “Thank You for Being a Friend” with their new single.

What’s the point of the howl of string to speaker, the hammering of stick-on skin? Is it transcendence, elevating the human spirit by catharsis in sound? Or is it summoning chaos, a purgatory in which to bask in all that’s unclean, the better to feel alive?

Why not both? Because that’s what’s on offer on Diet Of Worms, the second Rocket release by The Shits, Leeds via Newcastle’s titans of disgust and deliverance. This is a feast for the senses in the worst way possible – primal rock boiled down to its essence and flung full in your face. Using repetition, tortured vocal invective and heads-down intensity as blunt instruments, these eight tracks are an unprecedented torrent of acidic salvation. Whilst lurking somewhere on the decadence-destruction axis between the nihilism of prime Stooges and the bloody blackout of Brainbombs, Diet Of Worms is possessed of a legitimately uncompromising hostility that both elevates and debases it to co-ordinates unknown. Discussing today’s drop of the new single, ‘Thank You For Being A Friend‘, the vocalist of The Shits, Callum Howe notices: “The Shits are driving down the sleazy streets of West Yorkshire. Nothing to do, nowhere to go. You can’t stop us, we do this cos we love it.”

There are revelations here in the riffage and the rancour, even if they are the kind that occur in the bleary miasma of the lock-in, or witnessing the streetlight blur of the subsequent stagger home. Even more single-minded and remorseless than the band’s Rocket debut ‘You’re A Mess’, this is a record that demands full immersion. Whether it’s ‘Then You’re Dead’ hammering on a pulverizing garage-stinking riff until it begs for mercy, or ‘Change My Ways’, whose Creedence-In-Hell swagger and lurch is that of abjection transmuted into joy, this is psychedelia forcibly removed from its comfort zone of pastiche, and thrust into a bad-trip realm of the vivid and nightmarish.

But rarely has the process of making beauty and horror indivisible seemed like so much fun. If Werner Herzog was right, and the only harmony in the universe is that of overwhelming and collective murder, then The Shits are the true music of the spheres.

Pre-order Diet of Worms coming out April 3: Digital via Bandcamp here. And LP directly from Rocket Recordings here.

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[Thanks to Dan at Discipline PR.]

Grab your surfboard and sunscreen for Motherhood’s new single – “Kyle Hangs Ten.”

It’s no secret that Motherhood loves surf music – they are Canada’s Evil Beach Boys, after all. But usually by the time they release a song, the original influences have been hidden under layers of subterfuge, with our attraction to play far outweighing our ability to stay put.

“With ‘Kyle Hangs Ten,’ we were trying to write the most surfy song we could without over-complicating a genre that, at it’s core, is just swaggy country music” explains the band. “Adam had a drum beat that we jammed over, eventually falling into a Miserlou-adjacent guitar melody and filling the rest with pastiches.”

When the band were preparing to record their latest LP, Thunder Perfect Mind, the band couldn’t agree on the proper tempo for the song, until Kyle Cunjak (co-producer of the album) suggested both speeding it up AND slowing it down, creating 2 songs with the same bones.

“In the end, the slow version (the spaghetti western “Kyle Hangs at Noon”) made the record and the fast version (“Kyle Hangs Ten”) didn’t,” explains the band, “but we still love the song. Kyle promised us he’d be able to hang 10 by the time this song comes out. If not, he hangs at noon.

March 28 – Boise, ID: Treefort Music Fest // tickets
April 18 – Fredericton, NB: The Cap
May 14/15 – Paris, FR: Supersonic’s Block Party // tickets
May 16 – Strasbourg, FR: Pelpass Festival // tickets
May 18 – Skofja Loka, SI: AKC Nama
May 19 – Budapest, HU: Szimpla Kert // FREE
May 20 – Pilsen, CZ: Mistni Borci
May 21 – Hamburg, DE: Deichdiele
May 22 – Frankfurt, DE: Dreikönigskeller
May 23 – The Hague, NL: Sniester // tickets

Keep your mind open.

[Catch a wave to the subscription box.]

[Thanks to Gabriel at Clandestine Label Services.]

Review: VIAL – Hellhound

The cover of VIAL‘s new, raw, angry, fierce album Hellhound features an image that could be three different snarling, savage dogs ready to tear out your throats…or it could be an image of Cerberus – the three-headed dog who guards the underworld. Both are accurate reflections of the power trio, three beings who can each rip you to shreds and a three-in-one force that can stomp you into oblivion.

“Infected,” the album’s opener, even mentions dogs biting and tearing into you. “Scorpio Moon” buzzes more than rare Fuzzbox tracks and kicks trolls squarely in the teeth (“You just talk to hear yourself speak.”). “Creep Smoothie” mixes punk rage vocals with 1990s grunge-metal riffs while eviscerating dickweed dudes. “Idle Hands” is a cry for acceptance (“Why won’t you take me as I am? How can I make you understand?”) amid L7-like chugging bass.

“Sob” has the ladies of VIAL turning the “Fuck your feelings” table on their detractors (“Two thousand dollars for you if you can quit your whining…Send me your tears in a bottle. It’s really not that awful to see you cry for once. I think I’ll drink them with my lunch.”) who are now feeling the effects of stuff they voted for a couple years ago or experiencing sadness over being kicked to the curb. “Never Been Better” reminds me of some of Lunachicks‘ more radio friendly tracks. It’s a solid rock tune that seems primed for college rock radio shows this spring. The title track is under a minute, but it packs in enough power for a song three times as long.

The Be Your Own Pet-like “Undermine Me” is about discovering a relationship has gone south and it’s time to cut it loose. “Blah” has VIAL making fun of boys trying to become big things in the music scene mainly to impress girls and not to do anything meaningful. “Puke” has, oddly enough, a good groove to it. You’d think, with that title, that it would be another punk rager, but it’s more of a snarling groover that’s close to Queens of the Stone Age-like desert rock.

“Don’t watch the TV, and I don’t watch the news,” they sing on “Talktalktalk” – a song about information overload, endless opinions, and people who are “all bark, no bite” with their convictions (“You talk, talk, talk with nothing to say.”). “Boredom / Combustion” has the band tearing down Philadelphia and the entire state of Pennsylvania and comparing it to hell (“Death by boredom or combustion, I’m not sure which is worse.”).

Wrapping up with “Blood Red,” the band leave us exhausted and partially deaf, but ready to take on the world. You’re ready to go after your detractors like a three-headed beast after hearing an album like this. It’s the kind of album we need right now when friends, family, and neighbors are feeling targeted and vulnerable. We need compassionate ferocity, and VIAL inspires it.

Keep your mind open.

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[Thanks to Alex at Terrorbird Media.]

Rewind Review: Satan’s Pilgrims – Plymouth Rock: The Best of Satan’s Pilgrims (2004)

If you’re in need of some fun modern surf-rock, look no further than Satan’s Pilgrims. They showed up on my radar when I heard their song “Gravewalk” on a Halloween-themed rockabilly / surf compilation, and I’d been intrigued by their “monster-surf” sound since. Lo and behold, I stumbled upon Plymouth Rock: The Best of Satan’s Pilgrims in a Las Vegas wrecka stow (Record City) and snatched it up for less than ten bucks.

“Vampiro” starts off disc one (of two) with cool horror-rock grooves, and then “Que Honda?” shows off wild drumming. The squeaky, skronky guitars of the title track are bonkers. “Super Stock” covers a favorite subject of surf-rockers – fast cars. “Grave-Up” has that weird kind of spooky organ sound you want in horror-rock. “Creature Feature” is another great horror-rock tune that uses samples of old horror movie scores to good effect. “Soul Pilgrim” adds, yes, soul to the mix with the funky, groovy, soulful organ notes throughout it. “Badge of Honor” brings in some spaghetti western guitar riffs.

Highlights from disc one include the snappy opener “Soul Creepin'” (with some downright sexy bass and organ). “Haunted House of Rock” slinks and slithers all around you. The jangly guitars on “The Outsider” mix well with the harmonica riffs on it. A fun riff on Chuck Berry‘s “If You Wanna Dance with Me” (“If You Wanna”) makes you want to find a sock hop somewhere. “Green Chili” is another Morricone-flavored track with its great guitar work.

Again, if you’re a fan of instrumental surf-rock, this is for you. If you’re not a fan, this is still for you.

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