Crocodiles - Summer of Hate

Crocodiles – Summer of Hate
Fat Possum, 2009
Acquired: Half Price Books, Used, 2010
Price: $4

I think this is where I started getting disenchanted with the lo-fi scuzz whatever movement that is somehow still around. It's not because it's bad music or anything like that, it's just not music I want to listen to. Crocodiles pulled a big trick though, in that they released a really excellent single, “I Wanna Kill,” and the rest of the album just kind of meandered til the end with nary a righteous jam to be found, only distorted, delayed, and reverbed to death noodling with the occasional burst of angular shouty songs with slightly more intricate punk rock drums. Even the damn single goes on a chorus or two too long (but I won't complain, they pull off a weird lo-fi new wave 80s jam vibe so well that I always get excited when a DJ plays it on KJ every now and then). I think it's just become incredibly hard to review new music. It started hitting me in my last semester as music director where A.) I couldn't keep up anymore because B.) it all started to sound the same. Once I realized that the Vivian Girls were kind of boring and that my initial fervor about how they sounded so much like Black Tambourine morphed into “well, why don't I just listen to Black fucking Tambourine?” all new music sounded like it was copping someone else's game who had initially done it better. But that's just the case with new music, and why all band names are either boring (Crocodiles, Woods) or just outlandish and weird because well, fuck, there's nothing left (Psychedelic Horseshit). It's a cruel mistress, new music, and I just feel too old for her and have a hard time understanding if my opinions are valid or if there's something I'm missing. Although, those things missing are probably cigarettes and ten PBR empties at the Replay two Summers ago. This sounds like a record you buy at a show because the band puts on a good show and you're like “Oh yeah, that was great guys” and then a couple months later when you go to sell some records it's at the top of the pile. Which is probably why I have it. And even then, I only bought it for “I Wanna Kill” and for $4, well, why not?