Los Straitjackets – The Further Adventures of Los Straitjackets

With no desire to tarnish the natural twang of a freshly-strung strat, Los Straitjackets wrote their twelfth album with the discernable goal of attempting to transport the listeners to a slightly-modernized and genre-delving sample of the ’60s. The Further Adventures of Los Straitjackets is mostly a surf-rock album with many other early ’60s-era rhythm and blues, British invasion and garage rock influences. Though instrumentation remains constant, Los Straitjackets have done enough production work on their sound to provide enough variation to keep the listener in their little corner of the world. Tracks such as “Tubby”, a bottom-heavy throbber with a strong back-beat and a sly sax line, clearly show that though the band may specialize in mastering the calm-yet-cruising feel of surf-rock stylings, at any point in time they have the ability to manipulate both melodic form and supplemental instrumentation to reach the exact emotion they wish to convey. Though this album may not push the boundaries of human expression in any overt way, this album is certainly inventive and groovy enough for a drive to somewhere wet and hot. And that’s more vital to the healthy existence of music than most other revivalist clamour that seems to be garnering widespread critical acclaim. (Yep Roc Records, www.yeproc.com) Dustin Danyluk