Ride The Black Wave

Vinyl LP pressing. 2014 album from the San Diego-based Alt-Rock band. RIDE THE BLACK WAVE embodies what Jack Kerouac described of California's coast as having an 'end of the land sadness.' Recorded at San Diego's Singing Serpent and mixed by LA's Thom Monahan, the Telecasters have a golden shimmer, the drums seem to echo with a regional reverberation. The notes coming off the Rhodes float on like beer-buzzed afternoons, but just when you get lost in the hypnotic swirl of 'Sunny Daze' the churning guitars begin to circle like sharks, reminding US of the realities beneath all beautiful surfaces. So, it is with RIDE THE BLACK WAVE that The Donkeys add their own stratum to California's ever expanding musical frontier, while maintaining their golden shine as well as interjecting a tension with the sun and beauty. The record hypnotizes as much as it awakens; it poetically puts US at ease while we sit in traffic, peck at our keyboards in cubicles, or conversely, it accompanies US as we ride along desert highways, or sway with our lovers.