The Bambi Molesters cover for 'As the Dark Wave Swells'. Photo / Supplied
The Bambi Molesters cover for 'As the Dark Wave Swells'. Photo / Supplied
Although "surf rock" sounds a limiting description, echoing guitar twang can equally conjure up wide-open dry spaces (albums by Australia's Cruel Sea) or brooding spaghetti westerns.
And this memorably named Croatian instrumental group manage sea, sky and gunplay - and more. The producer/string arranger is Chris Eckman formerly of theWalkabouts who has also collaborated with the Willard Grant Conspiracy and delivers idiosyncratic solo albums (often loosely Americana, but Dirt Music found him with a young desert blues group from the Sahara).
Eckman lives in Slovenia and here gives this quartet a cinematic sound, pulls in guest horn players and string players for emotional colour and lets the music float in endless skies where thunderheads loom on the horizon.
There's no Endless Summer here, rather a mysterious night in a European city (the string-enhanced title track), Clint Eastwood staring down some unfortunate in a Mexican desert, wheels on a dusty road (Wrong Turn, Panic Party) or the closing credits of a Tarantino film (Into the Crimson Sunset).
Lazily bending chords (Lazy Girls Hangout) sit alongside dark twang, the spirit of Duane Eddy and Link Wray roll up (Thunderin' Guitar) and at the end (Rising East) you stack away the longboard and watch the waves as night drops. Mood, and moody, music.
