Review from Reverb Central... This is the second in the Beyond The Sea series, and it's chock full of splendid material! twenty two tracks that carry you all the way home! Picks: Los Banditos - Personal Jesus, The Barbwires - Whip-Out (Whiplash), The B-Sea Surfers - Up The Brackets, CHUM - What A Girl Wants, The Cocktail Preachers - Fell In Love With A Girl, Los Fantasticos - Can't Get You Out Of My Head, The Flowmasters - Welcome To Paradise, Fudge - I Love You Always Forever, The Glasgow Tiki Shakers - Champagne Supernova, Gulag Tunes - Russian Dance, The Lost Boys Of Penzance - Stacy's Mom, The Muffinmates - A Girl Like You, Our Flying Saucer - Human Behavior, RNA - Hash Pipe, Surfadelica - The Modern Way, The Surf Rockets - I Want It That Way, The Swamp Coolers - The Circle Of Life, The Thurston Lava Tube - Wannabe, The Vivisectors - Losing My Religion, Tainted Love, You Fellows Of All Souls - Falling (Theme From Twin Peaks) Track by Track Review Los Banditos - Personal Jesus Surf (Instrumental) Bass and rhythm guitar from "Pipeline" make a solid foundation for Depeche Mode's "Personal Jesus." This is a brilliant choice! Big drama and a ton of coolness! The Barbwires - Whip-Out (Whiplash) Surf (Instrumental) Holy cow! The Barbwires really shred on this loud and powerful take of Metallica's "Whiplash!" The in your face attack is actually more powerful than the original in my opinion. The B-Sea Surfers - Up The Brackets Surf (Instrumental) The Libertines' "Up The Brackets" is done in a slow and liquid fashion with delicate balalaika-like guitar and gentle whammy chords. Its a fine merger of Russian and surf styles with takes this song into the future. CHUM - What A Girl Wants Surf (Instrumental) Those giant slow whammy dip chords that are CHUM open this superb cover of Christina Aguilera's "What A Girl Wants." What can I say - this is fun, and the juxtaposition of their heavy approach against estrogen pop is delightful! The Cocktail Preachers - Fell In Love With A Girl Surf (Instrumental) The White Stripes' "Fell In Love With A Girl" gets an edgy treatment from The Cocktail Preachers. Twang and style. The calls from U. S. Bonds' "New Orleans" in the middle are just too cool! Los Fantasticos - Can't Get You Out Of My Head Surf (Instrumental) Kylie Minogue's "Can't Get You Out Of My Head" is spooky with the tremble of the guitar and the wah wah. The beat is nearly industrial. While an acquired taste, it nonetheless displays significant creativity, and, in the end, captures you by the time the bongos enter the fray. The Flowmasters - Welcome To Paradise Surf (Instrumental) Green Day's "Welcome To Paradise" is about the energy and chords. Great drums and bass thunder support edgy guitar and long pick slides. The slow moody middle is superb, especially the harmonic chords and the references to "Baby Please Don't Go." Then, there are the Led Zeppelin hints. Fudge - I Love You Always Forever Surf (Instrumental) What a cool cover of Donna Lewis' "I Love You Always Forever." The tribal drums and thick guitars create so much contradiction that it's completely magnetic. great idea and great track! The Fujiyama Monsters - Black Hole Sun Surf (Instrumental) Soundgarden's "Black Hole Sun" is gritty in the beginning, and then gets a bit of shimmer and dissonance from sax lead. it suffers a personality crisis of styles including grunge, surf, and lounge. inventive and original, but I didn't like it much. The Glasgow Tiki Shakers - Champagne Supernova Surf (Instrumental) The Friday On My Mind guitar riffs are really cool as The Glasgow Tiki Shakers launch into Oasis' "Champagne Supernova." Splashy and melodic, ringing with honest tone and grins. Gulag Tunes - Russian Dance Surf (Instrumental) Gulag Tunes have been morphing traditional Russian songs for a long time. I love their stuff! So, when they turned their attention to Tom Waits, what was I to expect? Well, "Russian Dance" is splendid with its stereo guitar delay and traditional rhythms. Coolness abounds! The Lost Boys Of Penzance - Stacy's Mom Surf (Instrumental) The Lost Boys Of Penzance make nice with The Fountains of Wayne's "Stacy's Mom." its light melody line trembles gently as the drums punctuate the flow. This is both pretty and rockin'. The Muffinmates - A Girl Like You Surf (Instrumental) Edwyn Collins's "A Girl Like You" features some very tasteful bass solo lines and stereo glissandos, among other things. Its easy pace is a little spooky. A very pleasant track. Our Flying Saucer - Human Behavior Surf (Instrumental) Bjoerk's "Human Behavior" is rendered surfable via tone and imagery. There are some very cool moments here, like a slightly jazzy post modern surf inversion. Dramatic drums and whammy. RNA - Hash Pipe Surf (Instrumental) Weezer's "Hash Pipe" is very playful, with horns, a light rhythmic beat, hoops and hollers, and just too much fun. This very adventurous track is really fresh. Total coolness! Surfadelica - The Modern Way Surf Rock (Instrumental) This Kaiser Chiefs' song is rockin' crisp and fun, with a smooth yet edgy sound. There's an adventurous and uplifting quality here, and the stark guitar tones are more on the rock side, but it's much too melodic to leave it there. A very cool song. The Surf Rockets - I Want It That Way Surf (Instrumental) The Backstreet Boys' "I Want It That Way" is turned on its head with heavy references to Jerry Lordan's "Apache." Never would I have suspected that such pop fair would work out this well. Congratulations Billy Blast Off & The The Surf Rockets! The Swamp Coolers - The Circle Of Life Surf (Instrumental) There's a silky sound and a very warm invitation amidst the island melody. It's bathed in a large wash of reverb that seems to call to the Caribbean. Steel drums and long sustain. It's vacation time in a steel drum. By the way, "The Circle Of Life" is from The Lion King. The Thurston Lava Tube - Wannabe Surf (Instrumental) The Spice Girls' "Wannabe" is really transformed by The Thurston Lava Tube! The immediately identifiable sound of this band seems perfectly suited for this. Great drums and lots of fun! The Vivisectors - Losing My Religion Surf (Instrumental) R.E.M.'s "Losing My Religion" gets a smooth treatment from The Vivisectors, especially by way of the violin. Its earthy ambiance and sustained flow are well crafted. The Vivisectors - Tainted Love Surf (Instrumental) This is much more about the rhythm than the melody, mostly because that is what the arrangement focuses on. The album credits Ed Cobb's "Tainted Love" to Marilyn Manson, but 20 years earlier it was P. J. Proby and then Soft Cell, and 15 years before that it was Gloria Jones. Incidentally, The Standells rejected the song in 1965! You Fellows Of All Souls - Falling (Theme From Twin Peaks) Surf (Instrumental) Merging prog and surf, Julee Cruise's "Falling (Theme From Twin Peaks)" is turned upside down to reveal its aquatic underbelly. It really grows on you over time. This compact disc is the sequel to the 2005 Cordelia Records release “Beyond the Sea”. The concept behind that CD was to revive a tradition that existed in the 1960s for guitar instrumental bands, The Ventures would be a prime example, to record cover versions of contemporary hit records. Due to the wonders of modern technology it was easy to get the word round about the project on internet discussion groups, such as Reverborama and Cowabunga, and a fine collection of high quality recordings by bands from all over the world was assembled. For this sequel, in order to bring the concept slightly more up to date, the rules were tightened up in that contributions had to be surf instrumental cover versions of hit records that dated from no earlier than 1990. This rule was occasionally treated like an eccentric clergyman wearing a strange crumpled suit at a pool party, but it sat quietly in a corner with it’s face covered by a newspaper and stoically did it’s job. Many potential contributors found the rule to be a difficult challenge. Some of them refuse to acknowledge that any music has been recorded since 1962, and some of them disapprove of messing with the surf instrumental formula and are prepared to type in capital letters to defend it. However the following bands were fearlessly open-minded and recklessly packed the Land Rover of surf music with the dynamite of experimentation and drove it at full speed into the electrical goods store of the last eighteen years; which is hardly anything at all in geologiocal terms and the equivalent of about an hour and a half in surf instrumentals terms.