Guitarists revere Dick Dale as the originator of the reverb-drenched surf-guitar style and as the co-inventor – with Leo Fender – of that iconic amplifier, the Twin Reverb. The Fender Twin's side-by-side stereo speakers enabled guitarists to adjust their tonal settings differently for each channel, creating a bigger sound with interference patterns and phasing effects. According to some accounts, the Twin Reverb was also the first amp able to withstand the punishment meted out nightly by Dick Dale, a story this ferocious new album renders perfectly plausible.

Nineteen sixties surf records never sizzled as spectacularly as Tribal Thunder. Driven by an aggressive rhythm section with tandem drummers, his improvisations channeled but in no way constricted by a set of characteristically Arabian-Tiki-flavored riff tunes, Dale thrashes up a fine fury. This is a musicianly instrumental album of unbridled extremes, as close to Sonic Youth territory as it is to "Pipeline" or Dale's original "Miserlou." In fact, one of Dale's signature strategies, present in his work since the early '60s, was a slamming slide down the fret board that figures prominently in Sonic Youth's guitar vocabulary. On Tribal Thunder, Dale wrenches these slam-slides into throaty roars and banshee cries, giving the music a feral, edgy intensity.

An innovator since the late '50s, Dick Dale is still running ahead of the pack. He would probably give a hair-raising fright to the sort of oldies audiences so many of his contemporaries cater to. A show with someone like Nirvana would be a far more appropriate forum for Dale's brand of Tribal Thunder. (RS 668)

ROBERT PALMER