Customer Reviews

Instrumental Fire

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If you're looking for great surf and instrumental music, this is IT! "Instrumental Fire" is an excellent compilation and sampler of some of the best modern instrumental bands of today. From the trashy L.A. sounds of the Bomboras, to the smooth Los Straitjackets, the fiery Fathoms (easily the best of the modern surf bands) or the all-out space fest of Man or Astroman?, it's all here on this CD. Pulp Fiction is gone, but this is the new order of surf instrumentals. Buy this, you won't regret it...a great disc!

This comp served as my introduction to a number of terrific surf & otherwise instrumental bands that I've since become more familiar with and crazy about. Among those featured here are The Bomboras (as well as the same band under an earlier name, Lord Hunt & His Missing Finks), The Fathoms, Laika & The Cosmonauts, Man Or Astroman?, Ben Vaughn, Eddie Angel AND Los Straitjackets, The Tiki Tones (so cool) AND The Tiki Men (so RAW!!) and The Omega Men (the 60s-style R&B group that has sadly gone their separate ways). A couple of really bizarre tracks are wedged in here, including Scratch Bongowax's "Surfin' Turd", and Travellers Of Tyme's tribute to LAND OF THE LOST, "Sleestak Chaka Trap". Most of these act as a "sampler", as they can be found elsewhere, but for the completists out there, Los Straitjackets' "Spanish Fly" can be found NOWHERE but here!! If you haven't experienced modern surf & instro, this (along with Los Straitjackets' debut CD) is a GREAT place to start!

We're not in the world of traditional surf here... this is evolution (and in some cases, devolution; some of these guys are either going the wrong way or they're just lost). There are some great mainstream surf groups on the disk: Bomboras, The Fathoms, Laika and the Cosmonauts, Man or Astroman, The Tiki Men and Los Straitjackets... but these sets don't represent their strongest material. And I should say that this disk calls itself instro-rock, not surf, and it is.

Surf fans will take to The Fathoms' "Blandingo", Man or Astroman's version of "Intoxica", Ben Vaughn's spaghetti-western "Enfermo", The Omega Men doing "My Favorite Dean Martian", perhaps The Tiki Men with "Theme from the Unknown" and Los Straitjackets playing "Spanish Fly". The rest of the disk is pretty uneven, kind of "He got on his horse and rode off in all directions".

If you're looking for a sampler... this is a good buy. It will introduce you to a number of players you don't know and may wish to know better. If you're looking for trad-surf, this isn't it.