“I’m known for these real dumb rock ’n’ roll solos... We don’t think of ourselves as super-pickers”: Primitive solos, Luchador masks, SpongeBob SquarePants? Meet Los Straitjackets, guitar’s most out-there instrumentalists

Eddie Angel of Los Straitjackets wears a Luchador mask and plays a funky looking offset with four single-coil pickups.

After spending the past several years backing power pop-smith Nick Lowe, Luchador-masked instrumentalists Los Straitjackets have surfed back to the fore with Somos Los Straitjackets, their first non-collaborative full-length release since 2012. The new album, however, sports a few songs that will be familiar to the outfit’s keenest fans.

High Wire Act, for instance, originally featured on Los Straitjackets guitarist Greg “Gregario” Townson’s 2022 solo release, Beyond the Horizon, as a clean-picked bossa nova before Los Straitjackets reworked it with uproarious, motorboat-rudder Dick Dale-isms.