CROCODILES - Sleep Forever (digi) on sale

CROCODILES - Sleep Forever (digi)
Last year Brandon Welchez and Chuck Rowell released their acclimated debut album as Crocodiles. Alongside Rolling Stone s 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 Sleep Forever

Raw it may be, but Sleep Forever is still an unmistakably more refined beast than its predecessor. Drum and organ whirls envelope you on tracks like Mirrors and Sleep Forever , which nod to Ladies and Gentlemen... era spiritualized as much as do Neu! and The Velvet Underground. Meanwhile, Brandon s tough Cali sneer gives it most emotional performance to date in All My Hate and My Hexes Are For You.

Back with a full five-piece 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 even have to do anything more mundane than sound check again.