Crocodiles

Tarnishing sunny melodies with a skuzzy recording style and lots and lots of feedback, Crocodiles' Charles Rowell and Brandon Welchez met during their formative teenage years in San Diego. Playing together in various incarnations since then, including in the Plot to Blow Up the Eiffel Tower, which featured Welchez on vocals and Rowell on guitar, the duo re-formed in a lo-fi capacity under the name Crocodiles in April of 2008. After self-releasing a distortion-driven 7", their single "Neon Jesus" was championed by No Age on a Stereogum best-of 2008 poll. As Crocodiles' debut full-length was recorded over that winter, blog readers started taking notice, and Summer of Hate was released by Fat Possum in late April of 2009. That winter, Crocodiles put out a Christmas-themed split 7" with Dum Dum Girls and prepped their follow-up, Sleep Forever, for the summer of 2010. After adjusting their lineup to include bassist Marco Gonzalez, keyboardist Robin Eisenberg, and drummer Anna Schulte, Rowell, Welchez, and the group traveled from their hometown of San Diego to record their third full-length in Berlin. That album, Endless Flowers, was released in the spring of 2012 on Souterrain Transmissions in the U.K. and French Kiss in the U.S. Their next album, the very focused and poppy 2013's Crimes of Passion, was produced by the Raveonettes' Sune Rose Wagner and featured just the duo of Rowell and Welchez, plus the occasional guest on backing vocals and horns.