Best known for having a penchant for spy / surf instrumentals and the 1960s music sound overall, West Coast band Trabants reflect on the Covid quarantine era with the 2023 release of Lockdown. Not completely surprisingly, the ten track CD is more blues-based than the surf-rock and spy/surf sound celebrated on earlier Trabants releases yet the music still benefits thanks to the band’s high level of instrumental rock proficiency.

Although a 5-track E.P. Lockdown Part 1 was first released digitally in 2020, it’s been tastefully combined on what has become the 2023 ten track Lockdown, adding in 5 additional tracks, referred to on the CD credits as Part II. The 2020 pandemic and all the global fears and infighting sparked over the rules and regs that has ensued since 2021 are captured in the grooves of the all-instrumental Lockdown CD.

Having started in the Boston area, where they recorded their debut album, “Highwire Surfing” in 2011, Trabants moved to the West Coast and have released over a half a dozen albums in the past decade, with Lockdown being their latest. As earlier indicated, the band’s prior releases were much more surf-friendly but clearly, the pandemic lockdowns left the band in a much bluer condition and the results are reflective yet rewarding.

Various members of Trabants have been renowned in the surf-rock world for a number of years, especially the group’s guitar-wielding founder and chief composer Eric Penna and the estimable Pete Curry (drums and bass on the 5 tracks of Part 1), while for Part II, Penna is joined by a number of other players that further flesh out his bluesy instrumentals. Instrumental guitar-centric blues has been around for decades, yet on the 10-track, 27-minute Lockdown CD, Trabants brings the genre alive and kicking into roaring ‘20s.