Currently touring the US until the end of July, local garage-surf trio Guantanamo Baywatch were kind enough to drop a new album right before they headed South. "Chest Crawl", released May 22nd, features a screeching cover of Paul Anka’s ‘Diana’, some slimy doo-wop, sexually explicit themes de rigour (Massage My Taj?! Excellent!): take it or leave it, it’s deliciously trashy!
They’ve kept their instrumental 60s garage-surf recipe, its exotic touch of string vibratos (think Miserlou) and many a high-pitched slides, but went further back in time to the Golden Age of rock ‘n’ roll to find the vocals, more prominent than on their past releases. The result? A nonchalantly noisy take on 50s melodic patterns filled with pathos, "ooh oohs" and those Trashmen/Cramps bursts of nonsense which, if you can indulge lo-fi one more time, and don’t happen to cringe at the rolling sound of surf, should do the trick for some ol’ hip-shaking antics.- Tracy Mamoun