Crocodiles

Crocodiles embody the enduring rock-duo tradition of balancing sonic abrasion with tuneful appeal, always producing engaging and indulgent material even when shifting emphasis between those poles. Charles Rowell and Brandon Welchez launched the project with immediate momentum, their initial releases including the 2009 album Summer of Hate emerging as polished, vividly colored examples of garage rock intersecting with the style of the Jesus and Mary Chain. Later efforts sometimes leaned further toward melody, as on the 2013 release Crimes of Passion, or swapped guitars for electronic textures, as heard on 2016's Dreamless, yet the luminous fusion of noise and melody remained undiminished on the 2023 album Upside Down in Heaven.

The pair first connected as teenagers in San Diego and have collaborated in multiple configurations ever since, among them the Plot to Blow Up the Eiffel Tower, where Welchez handled vocals and Rowell played guitar. They regrouped in lo-fi form as Crocodiles in April 2008, drawing heavily from Spacemen 3's droning textures and the Jesus and Mary Chain's melodic hooks before issuing the self-released, distortion-heavy 7" Neon Jesus. No Age highlighted the single in a Stereogum year-end poll, generating substantial notice and leading Fat Possum to issue the full-length Summer of Hate in late April 2009. That winter the band followed with a holiday split 7" alongside Dum Dum Girls and prepared Sleep Forever for release in summer 2010. After expanding the lineup with bassist Marco Gonzalez, keyboardist Robin Eisenberg, and drummer Anna Schulte, Rowell, Welchez, and the expanded group relocated from San Diego to Berlin to track their third album, Endless Flowers, which appeared in spring 2012 on Souterrain Transmissions in the U.K. and French Kiss in the U.S.

The focused, pop-oriented fourth album Crimes of Passion arrived in 2013, produced by the Raveonettes' Sune Rose Wagner and featuring only Rowell and Welchez with occasional guest backing vocals and horns. Welchez subsequently paused band activity to record an album with Dee Dee of Dum Dum Girls as Haunted Hearts. The duo later reconvened in Mexico City, where producer Martin Thulin helped refine their pop direction while adding Latin elements; the resulting album Boys came out in May 2015 on Welchez's Zoo Music imprint. The next project was tracked in the same city with Thulin also contributing instruments, yielding 2016's Dreamless, an album that minimized guitars in favor of keyboards and other textures. Distorted, fuzzy guitars returned prominently on the typically decadent and dark 2019 album Love is Here, issued by Deaf Rock. In the early months of the 2020 pandemic the band recorded covers released on a cassette series titled Shitty Times, while Welchez joined Kate Clover's noise-pop band and Rowell pursued industrial dance music as Crush of Souls, whose single "Call You" appeared in late 2021 and whose collaboration with Clover produced the album Bleed Your Heart Out in April 2022. Meanwhile the duo continued working together, tracking material in France with producer Maxime Smadja alongside drummer Diego Dal Bon and bassist Atef Aouadhi. The finished Upside Down in Heaven smoothed some of the prior record's sonic roughness while exploring themes of death, decay, and bitterness, and Lolipop Records released it in April 2023.