Album Bullet Review

At first glance, and I am going to be honest here, the Album Bullet looked like a ‘dad fish’. Your typical swallow tailed fish. Think the early Pod that Al Merrick & Rob Machado created or the where Mayhems round nose fish evolved too in the early 10’s, nowhere near as sexy as the OG 5’5 191/4 but a functional fish to keep dads in the water surfing and having fun.

The Album Bullet is anything but a ‘dad fish’, the rails and foil are very much taken from a high performance board. So at no point does it bog or bite in funny areas it just drives and pushes with speed. The swallow tail is wide enough to give you two pegs to pivot and turn off which gives you plenty of speed generation and mobility, but tight enough to not spin out when you really want to give some extra juice through a turn. The quad fin set up definitely helps here as well.

Might I add how hot quad finned boards are at the moment! Anyone see Felipe in the pool! It’s a wonder why more pro’s haven’t picked up on the fin configuration. Some of the most high performance surfing has happened on the quad lately. Nate Fletchers giant punt, Felipe in the pool and sheesh, Bobby only surfs quads and lets be honest Bobby is the Goofy GOAT to my generation (no disrespect to Occ).

Do you have a wave pool surfboard? Is it time to start considering a wave pool surfboard? There are multiple pools popping up all over the world and yes they are fun to surf but lets be honest with ourselves, they aren’t giving you the same push as our dear friend mother nature on a similar size wave. 

Fun boards and/or hybrids are the key to getting the most of any pool you’re in (yes, even on BEAST mode). Personally I think the Album Bullet could be the answer to the perfect ‘pool’ surfboard. There is enough performance in the board to ride the tube, do airs and push through turns, but it has that little bit of foam to get you through that weird first section on T6 or get you past the second flat spot on Slaters wave pool (if you have the kanga to hire it!) 

Outside of the pool this is a grovel machine with performance to burn. It makes any surf pretty fun and instead of just 1 turn on a shitty 6 inch wave it generates its own speed and you might even get two! 

Overall Best Conditions:

1-3ft waves with a bit of shape think most beachies, sand bottom points and wave pools. Wide range of best conditions I know! It won’t let you down going both ways but we all know your forehand is always favoured. Let’s put it this way. Advance Turns right for regular footers and Advance Turns left for goofys. #goofysdoitbetter

Stats were:
14 sessions
87 waves
Top Speed of 35km/h (Greenmount)
Longest ride was 297m (Kirra)

If all this talk over Dad Fishes has scared you off and you think this board isn’t for you. Just have a look at Josh Kerr going bonkers on it here, here annnnddddd here. Now obviously there’s not a lot of us out there who can surf like Josh. But as you can see, if you put the board in ‘performance’ areas it’s certainly not going to let you down and most certainly isn’t a dad fish. 

Off the mark its got zing and in the sub par conditions you’re most likely surfing that zing gets you into the first and then second section. Which in turn makes you have more fun!

Now it may sound like the Album Bullet is good in everything, but with all boards there’s always some challenges. With a bit more power and/or a bit more wave shape the width of board and tail left me a feeling a little skatey through turns. To compensate I had to be completely ready for each turn and know where to nurse things out a little bit. 

The quad set up helped with that nursing. Since riding the AM fronts with reactor rears in the Tolhurst Mid 6 (review here) thats all I have been running as a quad set up and I am loving it. I find it gives you the pivot from the reactor quad rears that you need in a quad but the rake up from in the AM to be able to really draw your turns out. 

***disclaimer***
Josh Kerr is a Dad. Sierra Kerr is most likely going to be a world champion one day and her air game is better than Ethan Ewings. So in reality this could be classed a Dad Fish, but not your everyday dad fish. Let’s be clear.

Look at it this way, having an Album makes you one of the cool kids. It’s not the board that won the Electric Acid Surfboard Test for Coco Ho (that was the Plasmic Twin) but Album is hot right now so get your order in because it could be quite the wait. It’ll be worth the wait however, because if you are in Aus (shout out to Nathan and the team) you are going to get a high quality built surfboard.

This board held up remarkably well and if you know me I do not look after my surfboards. 2 weeks in and it had the typical foot wells (which I for one love. Did you know Andy used to stomp boards before he surfed them to get foot wells in brand new boards. Ahhhh to be a pro surfer) but apart from that it held up really well and still is almost 3 months later. The Album Bullet is a well built board that suits a lot of waves sounds like a good combo to me! 

If you’re after a board to make life easy across a variety of conditions, the Album Bullet is for you. In small surf it goes. In medium to good surf it excels and if you’re wondering what to take to any wave pool in the world then this is a no brainer. Of course being a ‘hybrid/fun’ board it has its limitations but every board does. If you have a gap in the sub par condition category the Album Bullet is definitely one to be looking at.

The Wins:
*Being able to surf in a wide variety of conditions. 
*Sorted for your next wave pool adventure
*Quads, I’m a huge fan of the setup.

The Challenges:
*It can be a challenge to ride if you’re not open to new lines.

If you’re not quite sold on the Album Bullet but are interested in getting a board for junky conditions some alternatives include the JS Red Baron, the Channel Island OG Flyer or the BV2 from Chilli. Failing that, check out our Twin Fin Buyers Guide.