The Kung Fu Monkeys - Surfer en France!

What a glorious thing it is to have another surprise holiday single from The Kung Fu Monkeys magically appear just when the world needed it the most! There are not many things that could make 2025 feel like an encouraging year for Planet Earth, but this is certainly one of them. For this release, James Cahill and co. are Les Kung Fu Monkeys, and "Surfer en France!" is sung entirely in French. Clocking in at one minute, 47 seconds, this particular single has a bit of a KFM throwback feel to it — right down to the jaunty surf-pop vibes and Dyna Moe cover art. I'm pretty sure as I stepped outside the other morning, the faint echoes of celebration I heard in the distance were the collective gleeful exclamations of every late '90s/early 2000s pop-punk kid discovering that this song now exists. And of course it's an earworm of epic proportions. The song's bridge, an homage to Bobby "Boris" Pickett, cleverly suggests that this is something more than just a happy-go-lucky surf rocker (assuming my understanding of French isn't way off-base). 

It was never bearable to go through life referring to The Kung Fu Monkeys in the past tense. And now that I have it on good authority that the band has a bunch of songs written that may indeed be recorded one way or another in the very near future, it's somehow easier to feel just a little more optimistic about everything under the sun. Avec une hache, faisons une haché des monstres!

-L.R.

https://thekungfumonkeys.bandcamp.com/album/surfer-en-france

The Kung Fu Monkeys - "Last Christmas On Earth"

I know what you're thinking: why am I reviewing a Christmas song when Christmas is over? Well first of all, Christmas isn't over — Epiphany isn't for 11 more days! Second of all, new music from one of my favorite bands of all-time is always going to be breaking news in my universe. Thirdly, The Kung Fu Monkeys' "Last Christmas On Earth" is not your typical holiday song. It's a song with a powerful social & political message, which the band wrote "in solidarity with those who suffer." If you haven't listened to The Kung Fu Monkeys since the early 2000s, you may be surprised or outright shocked by the tone of this song. But consider that it has been more than a decade since the band released its The Incredibly Strange Case of the Mysterious Mystery duology, and by then the band had already grown by leaps and bounds from its earlier pop-punk iteration. This is something very, very different from The Kung Fu Monkeys, and boy does it ever leave an impression. I like it when bands surprise me and challenge me to reflect, and this song does both. As the title makes clear, "Last Christmas On Earth" is a very dark Christmas song (if you even want to call it a Christmas song). This is a song about genocide which ends with a call to action. It was written and recorded just two days ago, and it's a haunting creation that's beautiful in its own way. It's a free download, but the band does suggest some specific charitable donations in lieu of paying for the song. If there's any justice in the world, "But before we're reduced to ashes/Let's go and fuck up these fascists" will become iconic lyrics in holiday lore. James tells me a new album is in the demoing stage, so we may be hearing a lot more from KFM in the near future. Stay tuned! 

-L.R.

https://thekungfumonkeys.bandcamp.com/track/last-christmas-on-earth