Crocodiles – Dreamless

Rating:

While listening to Crocodiles newest LP, Dreamless, youll either feel like youre having dark dream, wading on a foggy lake, or sweating in a humid nightclub, but youll never feel uncomfortable.
Playing around between synthy punk rock a la The Screamers or Joy Division, dream-pop from the likes of Deerhunter, or plain old dirty RnR, Crocodiles certainly know how to make it all sound like one cohesive genre. Your mind may ignore an attempt to overanalyze the record, which sometimes even strangely masks itself as its own brand of easy listening. Each song is more memorable and catchy than the next, making it the kind of album where, after only a few listens, you anticipate the start of the next song seconds before it begins.
Part of the catchiness of Dreamless is in the clever and always exemplified bass-playing. The production allows the bass to stand out on its own throughout the entire record, and if anything is unforgettable about this album, its those deep sexy licks. On songs like Welcome to Hell, the bassline serves as the foundation of the entire track, never changing throughout its entire four minutes, and then on Jailbird, the line is so pronounced and upfront that its hard not to shake some part of your body.
The true brilliance of this album, though, relies in its boldness to color outside the lines, and its flawless execution that makes its strangeness seem normal. For example, on Im Sick, you may listen to the song ten times and never even realize that the song is backed by a drum machine and includes a 30-second synth interlude, and instead recognize it as a dirty punk groove. Maximum Penetration could somehow be used in the elephant graveyard scene for the upcoming Lion King live action movie, and no one would blink an eye. You could maybe even convince a room of people to get up and dance to the dark and driving Jumping on Angels without realizing the frustration in the vocals, and then flawlessly segue back into Beyonce or some shit.
Crocodiles somehow made a dark and angry record catchy and memorable, and I havent been able to go a couple of days without humming one of its songs to myself. I feel like Ill look back on this album as a forgotten classic in the future, and thats a crime.