Artist
From: http://www.fatpossum.com/artists/crocodiles“Welcome
to the art-punk renaissance”, declared Rolling Stone magazine last
year, triumphantly heralding Crocodiles’ debutalbum. It was all just
deserves for a San Diego duo who’d spent years kicking against the
mundanity of their sprawling military town. As singer Brandon Welchez
remembers it: “My neighbourhood was just so boring that a lot of my
friends started doing hard drugs at an early age. A lot of kids were
growing up too fast, like, in a gross way…losing teeth. Plus my high
school was full of racists and homophobes. Music was an escape from all
that.”
Sharing both Brandon’s love
for girl groups and punk, and his feeling of
small-town-alienation, was guitarist Charles Rowell. Meeting at an
anti-fascist rally when they were teenagers, the two have been in
countless bands together since.
Last year the pair released their acclaimed debut album as Crocodiles.
Alongside Rolling Stones support, ‘Summer Of Hate’ also garnered them
endless blog buzz and tours across the US and Europe supporting bands
like Holy Fuck and The Horrors. Straddling vast sonic terrains from the
jagged guitar stabs of street-strutting lead single ‘Neon Jesus’, to
throbbing kraut rock, expansive shoegaze and irresistibly danceable
disco-punk jams, ‘Summer Of Hate’ drew comparisons with The Velvets and
Primal Scream.
Significantly, it also caught the ear of one James Ford - Simian Mobile
Disco man and producer of Arctic Monkeys, Klaxons and Florence and the
Machine amongst others. Together, all three headed into the desert in
early 2010 to create ‘Summer Of Hate’’s psychedelic, hypnotic and
anthemic follow-up. An album that would later be christened, somewhat
fittingly: ‘Sleep Forever.’
“It was this home made studio in the middle of Joshua Tree that was just
bulging with vintage equipment,” remembers Brandon. “You’d open a
cupboard and a 60s organ would fall out or there’d be a 1950s
hollow-body guitar under your bed!”
James Ford adds, “The studio in Joshua tree was a perfect place to
record. It’s a magical place and the studio had lots of otherworldly
toys and instruments to play with! We bonded over a love of Harmonia and
the Monks and got excited by the idea of combining these krauty rhythms
and textures with the bands' psychedelic songs and melodies.”
“More krauty, more dub” are the watch words that Brandon and Charles use to describe ‘Sleep Forever’.
“James was really great,” says Brandon of its producer. “I guess there
was a small fear that because he is someone who produces hit records
that he’d clean us up a lot, but he did a great job of keeping it raw.”
Raw it may be, but ‘Sleep Forever’ is still an
unmistakably more refined beast than its predecessor. Drums and organ
whirls envelope you on tracks like ‘Mirrors’ and ‘Sleep Forever’, which
nod to ‘Ladies and Gentlemen…’ era Spiritualized as much as they do Neu!
and The Velvet Underground. Meanwhile, Brandon’s tough Cali sneer gives
it’s most emotional performance to date in ‘All My Hate and My Hexes
Are For You’.
“The album’s still gritty and punk,” says Charles rightfully. “ but it’s
also really big and loud and psychedelic. It’s just a lot more
organic.”
Indeed, ‘Stoned to Death’ and ‘Hollow Hollow Eyes’ still buzz with Crocodiles’
trademark jerk and noise punk jut, but there’s tenderness and romance too – as
heard on ‘Girl in Black’ and ‘Hearts Of Love’ or the euphoric first single ‘Sleep Forever’.
If this album has a manifesto it’s escapism and adventure – both sonically and
metaphorically. “All I’ve ever thought is, ‘what can we do to make sure
our lives aren’t ordinary and boring?’ I don’t wanna go back to school
or get a real job!” laughs Brandon.
Back with a full five-piece live band – including drummer Alianna
Kalaba, bassist Marco Gonzalez and keyboardist Robin Eisenberg – and a
summer of open roads ahead of them, it seems unlikely that Crocodiles
will ever have to do anything more mundane than soundcheck again.
» READ MORE
