Summer of Hate by Crocodiles
LABEL: Fat Possum

For grunge fans hearing drum machines and synthesizers, automatically their minds fall into a horrible vortex, a sort of retraction to that weird time when mamas dressed in leopard skin leotards and pranced around to Pat Benetar and Donna Summers. What an awful thought. True or not, disco reigned over America like a monstrous, malicious monsoon for over one decadent and shameful decade. Well, the drum and synthesizer have come back. Unfortunately, for those with their sparkling leotards folded neatly in the depths of their closets, it has not come full circle.

Crocodiles, a blooming band from the refreshed Fat Possum label, may not be the progenitors of this new movement mixing a raunchy, blues grunge with those old, feverish synthesizers and drum machines, but they are certainly contributing. They have a raucous, ballsy sound—just two guys with two guitars, some computer equipment and other things that Pink Floyd probably—no, definitely— had their hands on.

Using some spacey synthesizers combined with edgy guitar riffs, Crocodiles have produced Summer of Hate, an album noticeably intellectual in ironic way. “Here Comes the Sky,” the fourth track on the album, is a very similar song to “Because” (funny, but not “Here comes the Sun”), by the Beatles but with a certain Crocodiles authenticity. The zany, Jack White esq. guitars and drum machines claim a unique sound. But interestingly enough, off of Abbey Road, “Here Comes the Sun,” and other Beatles’ classics, especially off Sgt. Peppers, mark a time when music got artsy. Bands like the Moody Blues tried to use synthesizers to try and replicate that artsy, Beatles sound. Music got weird, stripped of its Chuck Berry charge and, fortunately for those with a love of disco balls and club drugs, moved towards the fever decades. Much of rock and roll lost its primitivism. Punk, for example, was a definite rebellion against this loss. And now, bands like Radiohead, Beck, and Crocodiles have started to use the electronics and computers to bring the primitivism, the punk, the rock and roll charge, back. It’s almost as if Crocodiles are taking us back to a parallel universe to a time before disco and 80s hair metal that never happened...like they were inserted somewhere in there, around 1974-75, and music went a completely different direction, much more fun and rebellious.

Crocodiles are an impressive young band that will be doing some damage. Less depressing than Radiohead and a little less artsy than Beck, but still similar to both. Crocodiles join their comrades at Fat Possum, the Black Keys, in bringing a bluesy sound back, especially true in songs like “I Wanna Kill,” and “Summer of Hate.” Sure, there’s a poppy sound to the singles, but who cares. The songs move, they aren’t pretentious. They rock. Their lyrics have life to them and the album flows from song to song, so you need the whole deal. Cheers to a good, progressive album.

REVIEWED BY SAM HOUGHTON
Knocksfromtheunderground.com


Listen to two tracks from the album:

"Summer of Hate"