Love & (The Summer of) Hate

Is it ever okay to not know why you like or don't like something? Whenever I ask someone why they don't like something--be it music, art or even food--and they reply with "I dunno", I get impatient with them. I ask, "But. . . .why? WHY don't you like it?? Tell me!" It's like hitting a wall (the worst kind!), and some people just can't or won't respond any other way.

Saying "I dunno" is a cop out most of the time and I just can't get behind it. But lately I've been hitting the "I don't know" wall myself, thanks to the Crocodiles, who are living in a media maelstrom right now. Write ups in every magazine and blog under the sun compare them to Jesus & Mary Chain or Echo & the Bunnymen, mere 80s synth-pop/shoegaze worshippers who've lifted a sound so entirely that they can't even be taken seriously in elite circles. Yet their debut album, Summer of Hate (Fat Possum), has been on almost-constant repeat since I picked it up and I can't decide whether or not to be ashamed of that, because I don't know WHY I like it.



Maybe it's just the inherent and brazen self-indulgence of their hip credo that I identify with, and God knows I'm a sucker for gratuitous, ear-piercing feedback, buzzy, fuzzy overkill and claustrophobic distortion. In their catchy single "I Wanna Kill", the chorus drones "I want to kill tonight/I want to kill tonight" at length--a sentiment I can't deny sharing. Maybe I just need any chance for a bedroom dance-a-thon, especially on those San Francisco "summer" days when it's 55 degrees and cloudy.

"Here Comes the Sky" could actually be termed beautiful. It's a lovelorn surf ballad made hazy by sunstroke and maybe too many hallucinogens, a nod to the Beach Boys with their inside-out, arpeggio-ed finger picking and boyish vocals. "Refuse Angels", the most furious of the bunch, contains the bubblegum sneers of bandmates Charles Rowell and Brandon Welchez, mention of Leon Trotsky and the pulsation of tumbling bad-acid-trip synths careening at an almost-out-of-control 100 mph.

As the album's sinewy, saccharine aftertaste becomes more deeply embedded in my sun-starved brain, I've suffered the bitter realization that the album's dark, menacing sound and labrynthine mazes of Tremoloed distortion are what cloaks its true colors--meticulously crafted pop songs (the enemy? This will be explored later). I can forgive the Crocodiles for this clever feat of illusion now, but in a year I might be throwing this album in the trash as the high reaches of the "I don't know" wall begin to crumble. Or I might've purchased it on vinyl by then.

They arrive at the Rickshaw Stop this August and these ears, eyes and legs will put them to the truest test.

A taste: