Anglo-Japanese garage rockers The Routes have some pretty cool original music to their name, but here they continue their successful formula of transferring other genres to the surf scene. Chris Jack (guitar, bass, percussion), Toru Nishimuta (bass) and Bryan Styles (drums, percussion) have some guts: after covering the electro songs of Kraftwerk on The Twang Machine and the punk tracks of Buzzcocks on Reverberation Addict, they now dare to attack another bastion with an army of protective fans. On their new full-length Surfin’ Pleasures, the trio reimagines and rearranges twelve post-punk classics by Joy Division – both the album title and cover art pay homage to their Unknown Pleasures LP – as exciting surf guitar instrumentals. They do this with such respect and craft, and the new versions are so completely different, that the only way to respond to this is to enjoy it.

Surfin’ Pleasures, mixed & mastered by Andrew Shartle, is out now digitally, on CD and vinyl LP, through Topsy Turvy Records. The cover art is a variation on Peter Saville’s design for Joy Division’s Unknown Pleasures, but the lines now represent a sound wave instead of a pulsar.

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