Making its CD debut some 20 years after it was originally recorded, the fourth and final album by Jon & the Nightriders continues music historian John Blair's tribute to surf music, and it would be no exaggeration to say that if all surf sounded this good, the genre would never have died. Cut with the same eye for menace that sundry contemporary Brit acts were morphing into psychobilly, but with such a good-natured slant that the resemblance is purely superficial, Stampede! is scattered across both band originals and genuine classics: "Speedway" was written in 1963 by future California Lieutenant Governor Mike Curb, "Catalina" is a King Pins cover, "Boss" is a Rumblers oldie, and everyone's in love with "Wild Weekend," Tornadoes saxophonist George White's pièce de résistance. All are chopped out with such an eye for detail, however, that you forget the album was cut in 1986. This is surf as it ought to sound, twanging and crashing with a passion for a lifestyle that seems almost impossibly utopian today. But five bonus tracks recorded across sundry Nightriders resurgences through the late '90s prove that the spirit of surf remains alive and well, and a full-scale Nightriders reissue program will prove that to everyone.
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