The Worst is Yet to Come: Best Of 1995-2017

Norway's Los Plantronics have been rocking for more than 20 years now, hence this double CD or double-vinyl compilation. The band, infamous for appearing on stage wearing Mexican wrestling masks and playing up a cartoonish take on Tex-Mex culture, are high energy fusionists who ladle out great dashes of Dick Dale-style surf guitar alongside mariachi brass and Spaghetti Western atmospherics à la Ennio Morricone. Remind you of anything? The movies of Tarantino and Rodriquez certainly also trade in a nightmare cartoon Mexicana and, listening here, I feel Los Plantronics have never aspired much beyond being a tribute band of sorts to these garish directors. Across the 30 tracks here there is very little musical subtlety or variety – it's all a big, roaring rush, with some songs more rockabilly, others punk and others being soundtrack themes (‘The Good the Bad and the Ugly’). The originals are solid but rarely distinctive. And what is rousing in concert – Mexican masked wrestler antics to fast, loud songs – simply doesn't translate on disc. At 22 years old, it's now time for Los Plantronics to grow up.