Del-Toros – Stainless

 

Del-Toros – Stainless
Down at the Nightclub Records – 2025
Rock, Stoner, Space, Surf, Psych, Kraut, Noir, Instrumental
Rated: ****

Hold on. This might get weird. It’s one of those albums that makes me feel and imagine a whole lot of things. Del-Toros started as a three-piece right before the little old Stoner HiVe blog was founded. It was the year of our lord 2008 and the Del-Toros three decided to move and groove as a righteous surf rock outfit. A three track demo followed and two years later they released their self-titled album with Undertow-Recordings. The Hottest Places In Hell Are Reserved For Those Who In Times Of Great Moral Crisis Maintain Their Neutrality, followed three years later on the same label. What an album title! Perhaps they should be playing that one in full, touring the world, in these troubled times, right? Anyway, Survival of The Rockest followed two years after that on the cool Lighttown Fidelity. And their last feat of arms was Ten Stories High in 2018 under the Down at the Nightclub Records label. The sound morphed over the years, imploring more psych, kraut, stoner and space influences and now, for the new album Stainless they’ve turned into a fourpiece with Dylan Does on keys. And still the cool Guido Bruin on Guitar, Sicco Roukema on Bass and Ton Gaarthuis working the Drums. As stated the new album is called Stainless and the entire album has ricochet into a much darker and rock noir territory. Every track hold so much ambience and atmospheric elements it would make David Lynch go crazy with envy.

We already mentioned the Groin Swab single. The perfect soundtrack for the awesome video they made for it, riveting ruckus, with a bit of surf, highly atmospheric and a lot of ominous noir noise. More surf can be heard in the later Mezcal Spider track, the most  obvious link to where Del-Toros came from. But it opens the ball with this oriental sounding space movement, soon a mechanical marching beat enters and a ragged guitar pulls the veil over your eyes. Is there a mysterious and misty carnival happening somewhere in there? Is that where Into Diola is leading us? The ending riddled with a sense of impending doom and of everything crashing down, it is quite the opener of what will soon turn out to be an amazing instrumental opus.

Lowriders & Highrollers keeps the suspense going after the opening track, before taking it down a notch, turning the sunshine up and the reggae laziness into a surf that squeaks and swells. A swell that becomes a tsunami towards the end. Crashing hard! Groin Swab comes first before it fades into East Jesus. Which brings you an incredibly wide vista, open to all sorts of elements, windswept and barren, the landscape only blooming occasionally. As deep as it is wide, the track offers all sorts of interpretations, but with such tasteful execution, it is hard not to fall in love with whatever emotions you might feel. Even if it might be despair or a feeling of being utterly lost. Either way, we’re not in Kansas anymore. And Brainmelt (Or Brianmelt as it says on bandcamp) only temporarily feels like a much needed fresh dip in the rolling tides of the ocean, for soon the heat is turned up, and it becomes stuffy, sweltering and feverish. Mezcal Spider, a surf, pierced by breakdowns and deconstruction, gets a brain melting outro when they seemingly wreck a wild piano. Did it refuse being tamed we wonder?  The album ends with the Two Birds One Stone track, once again heavily painted in David Lynch colors, also offering the option of the ouroboros, for the fade out can seamlessly start the first Into Diola track again. But where the opener prepares you for the great and secret show to come, ending Two Birds One Stone gets under your skin, and with its dark tone, it will wrestle its way into your heart and mind, showing you the other side of the veil and the danger that lurks there. Del-Toros’s Stainless is surreal, at times grotesque or weird, but always otherworldly and captivating…

(Written by JK)

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Words on the Fatso Jetson & Del Toros - Split, from 2016 out on Shattered Platter