The Rämouns: Rockaway Beach Boys

The best $1.00 album I ever bought? Though I've bought a lot of dollar albums (Rockaway Beach Boys came from the discard stack in a political-metal store named War On Music) this one by The Rämouns was a glorious surprise. It's a surprise because I had aLready listened to the album over at Ratboy69's site and given it a meh. My initial reaction (mirrored in a lot of badly-written on-line reviews) was based on the fact that it was more Beach Boys than Ramones. Now, upon holding the things in my hand, I hear the strength of playing it 66.6% Beach Boys and 33.4%% Ramones.

On songs like "I Get Around" the band use a Ramones-like instrumental foundation and then over-lay it with a surprisingly assured vocal performance. Unlike so many novelty bands (and I'm not denying the novelty appeal here), this isn't based on mashing up two wildly disparate elements but rather amping up the connection between two things that are already somewhat linked. The glorious surprise is in how deftly this German band pulls off the hybridization.

The album is available from Amazon but for $25.71, which for truth-in-advertising's sake I must warn you is almost a dollar a minute and that's a lot pricier than my copy.