This category is for surf groups that don't feel like they need to closely imitate the sounds of yesteryear, who carve out their own sound and identity. I don't know if I've ever crammed this category with so many records as this year -- and this is after several difficult cuts. Maybe I need to be more ruthless, or maybe there was just so much to love. I like to think it's the latter. Here are what I consider to be the cream of the crop for 2020.

It's another Bandcamp Friday which means 100% of your money goes to artists, none of it to poor ol' bandcamp, some of it to Paypal. This is probably going to be a shorter one because a) there were a lot of releases but a lot of them were Halloween singles, b) there weren't a whole of of LPs and c) I'm kind of behind on prepping for the finale of the top 100 surf records of the 2010s.

But anyway, here's some standouts