Picture shoegaze with bleached-blonde highlights, cowboy boots and a duffel bag full of peyote hitchhiking somewhere on the western highways and you've got a pretty good image of The Vandelles. I'm pretty sure there's a surfboard to be found somewhere in this sea of sound on the Vandelles' EP, but I'm so bugged out by the gonzo go-go '60s surf guitar and the drum blasts on "Swell To Heaven" and "Lovely Weather" that it's just a bit hard to make out through all the distortion.

At times the vocals on this EP are too covered in reverb for my taste, but the fuzzy riffs that come from the pages of some pulp comic and the drugged-out art drone of the bonus cut following "Dead Wave" ends The Vandelles' EP on a particularly high note, riding the crest of a wave that won't come down before they come back with a full-length release.

Head over to Safranin Sound to order The Vandelles' EP.

Tags: any given tuesday