Anyone who’s paying attention knows that Genki Genki Panic cranks out new music at an alarming pace. It can be overwhelming to newcomers, but the group’s latest proper full-length, This Is...Dungeon Surf!!!, distills the spirit of a full-throttle genre-bending haunted-house and surf-punk saga into 17 spooktacular cuts. What sets apart these Georgia-by-way-of-Tennessee misfits from run-of-the-mill Tommy Bahama shorts-wearing surf parrots is an increasingly twisted descent into the outsider fringes of the grotesque. These howlies prefer the eerie light of the full moon to the warm California sun, making their wide-eyed instrumentals all the more engaging. Songs such as “Ghouls On Film,” “Radon Chong,” and “Smells Like Teen Sewage” show off a reverence for the classic reverb and kerrang of the Ventures, Dick Dale, and the Trashmen as much as the creepy underworld soundscapes of Vic Mizzy and Danny Elfman. There’s also an undeniable sense of humor being telegraphed in those over-the-top songs’ titles. “Massive Severed Laphog In A Paper Bag” leads the firebrand charge with delay effects layered over tons of reverb, so much so that it actually sounds like the song is splashing out of the speakers. Other tunes, such as “Terror Vision” and “How Do You Like Your Hyperspace Maggots, Michael?” are utterly gritty and nasty—in the most appealing way those adjectives can be used. “Drac’d Raw Dot Com” and “Smells Like Teenage Sewage” carry the distortion of 8-bit dungeon synth sounds to horrific depths; a nod to which comes through in the album’s title, Dungeon Surf. One, possibly two songs willfully violate the rules with vocals, depending on how you’re listening to the album. The Bandcamp tracklist is different from what’s on Spotify, and the CD features seven songs that aren’t on the LP. “I Was A Teenage Were-chud” tells a wicked tale of heavy breathing and depravity in the graveyard under the pale moonlight, embracing the monster-movie nightmares that the group invokes from the cover art to the ghastly tongue-in-cheek song titles. Hainters gonna haint, but this is the essential GGP release so far.
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