Casino Volante are an English band who contribute four essentially placid surf instrumentals with reverb and whammy bars and minor chords and all that other appropriate shit. The Waistcoats are Dutch neo-mods (mods more like “Keith Moon’s balls mod” than like “touch-up paint for your Vespa™ mod”), who apparently thought i wouldn’t notice that their corkin’, Farfisa™-driven instrumental “Jack’s Off Day” found herein is THE EXACT SAME SONG as their corkin’, Farfisa™-driven instrumental “Jack’s Day Off” found on their All The Rage album. WELL, I GOT NEWS FOR YA! I NOTICED!YOU GODDAMN KIDS WILL NEVER GET AWAY WITH THIS! I KNOW MY RIGHTS! I KNOW WHO YOU ARE AND WHAT YOU DID! Luckily, “Jack’s Day Off”/”Jack’s Off Day” is my favorite Waistcoats song, so i won’t be pressing charges this time. Roundin’ out their lot is a pretty cool cover of the Moving Sidewalks’ oft-covered “99th Floor,” a Yardbirds-styled honker, and an additional instrumental of much less ambient corkitude. The Waistcoats are worth a sniff, but unless you were looking for an excuse to stock your larder with some more surf instrumentals, i’m not so sure the split-double-seven-inch would be the model of efficiency you so richly deserve. BEST SONG: Waistcoats, “Jack’s Off Day” BEST SONG TITLE: Casino Volante, “Breathe, Elvis, Breathe” FANTASTIC AMAZING TRIVIA FACT: I believe i covered this with the whole “Jack’s Day Off” thing.
–norb (Rockin’ Bones)