Distort Your Day With Joel Grind and Davie Allan's New Surf Rock Split

While one might assume that Toxic Holocaust mastermind Joel Grind's knowledge of surf rock starts and end at "Surf Nicaragua" due to his thrash credentials, as it turns out, he's got more than a little Dick Dale running through his veins. Grind just announced a new split with legendary surf guitarist Davie Allan, whose agressive licks adorned the soundtracks of a ton of 60s biker movies like The Wild Angels, Thunder Alley, and The Born Losers.

His distinctive hyper-distorted wail came to fruition after the now-iconic fuzzbox effect pedal was invented and Link Wray first popularized the use of distortion; Allan swirled the two together and came up with his own distinct sound that, quite obviously, still inspires newer generations of musicians—including Joel Grind, who up until now has been best known for the black/thrash mayhem of his main band, Toxic Holocaust, and his skills behind the boards recording extreme metal and punk bands.

Grind is no stranger to fuzz, though or to straight up rock'n'roll, either (have you ever listened to his Tiger Junkies side project with Abigail's Yasayuki Suzuki? You really should, especially if you dig lo-fi sleaze). The surf connection is still pretty unexpected, but as Grind tells it, his collaboration with Allan was basically a stroke of luck.

"Very excited to get this record out there!" he told Noisey. "This record was an idea I had after being inspire by some old biker movie music, which turned out to be the music of Davie Allan. This lead to me getting in contact with him and proposing the idea of a split, which to my surprise he was into! This is sure to get a few mixed reactions from people expecting more metal-oriented material but this record is just as fuzzy and blown-out as ever, just with a different twist. All Hail Fuzz! All Hail Davie Allan!"

Preorders are available from Relapse now (the record drops March 11), and you can listen to two tracks right here.