By Anthony Mark Happel
Oh, those crazy kids at Fat Possum. Here they go again, offering up to the world another wiggy duo of noise-making hooligans. This time it’s San Diego’s Crocodiles (sans “The”), who are known by their human names as Charles Rowell and Brandon Welchez. The two met as teens amidst the hollow loneliness of sun-baked So Cal, and developed a liking for contradictory sounds as a result of the weird isolation of the California mythos.
At their best they layer some hummable melodies on top of tightly-wound electronic percussion, and express grievous emotions involving hate and murder on the best song, “I Wanna Kill.” They come off sounding not unlike Danish-duo The Raveonettes, but more shambolic, and less stringent with the chords. They do lose their mojo a little bit on the lame “Here Comes the Sky,” which sounds like unfinished atmospheric electro-bullshit.
There’s a chilling, droning quality and a definite Jesus & Mary Chain vibe on “Refuse Angels”, and they could exploit that more, but there’s just not enough going on within the subtext to justify the comparisons. When it could be inspired it’s really just kind of irritating.
