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The Tormentos "Grab Your Board"

John E. Koontz | Lafayette, CO USA | 01/23/2007

(4 out of 5 stars)

"This is an nice freshman effort in the (instrumental) surf rock genre from Argentina's "Los Tormentos" ['the Torments' or 'the Fears']. Surf music - and instrumental rock generally - are very popular world wide, or at least in areas where European cultural influence is strong (Europe, the Americas, Australia, Japan, etc.).



The album includes one English vocal, "The Tormentos [REPRISE]" - pretty decent, actually - and is a mix of original (I think?) material ("Tormentos") and covers of surf standards, e.g., "Surf Party" (Astronauts), "Scatter Shield" (Surfaris), and others, e.g., "Moon Over Marin" (Dead Kennedys) (sans vocals, very pretty). You can find the Tormentos on MySpace, YouTube, etc.



Style: wet (with reverb), plenty of glissando and some tremolo, some (reverb) tank kicking, mostly single lead + rhythm (I think), reminiscent of Portland's Satan's Pilgrims, tunes mostly somewhat in the Western vein (as in Country & Western), cf. "El Justiciero" [approx. 'The Sherif']."