I’ve been writing music reviews for nearly a decade now and, admittedly, I do judge books by the cover. The album art on this one is not bad, it just screamed Folklife Fest with a bit of spooky nonsense for good measure. And look, I’m happy with being wrong. Especially in this case when I was utterly shook to find surf punk blaring out of my speakers. Nothing about the cover art even fleetingly whispers “beach” to me. Yet here we are with tremolo guitar, surf beats, and heavy reverb. It’s all instrumental which honestly was a relief to me since the band is from the French Basque Country and my French is terrible. So it was cool to have my expectations challenged and even tempered. I even went on a bit of an emotional journey with them. The songs at the top of the record are bright and high energy. Then we dip down to some more somber, campfire in the sand vibes. Pretty cool to get some sunny surf rock from a country that’s mostly landlocked. And these guys nail it. –Kayla Greet (Spider Music)