Crocodiles
Sleep Forever
(Fat Possum)

Crocodiles won’t be able to escape comparisons to The Jesus and Mary Chain and other like artists this time around, but more attentive listeners will be treated to a record that combines light and dark sounds instead of awkwardly highlighting the stark contrast between opposing elements. Sleep Forever features an array of effects that are used well and applied liberally (though perhaps too liberally for some tastes) throughout the album.

The first fifty seconds of “Mirrors” reflect the feeling of waiting for the band to come onstage. The song requests a slight test of patience, but the song is worth the wait. The introduction signals gloom and doom, but, surprisingly, builds into an uplifting pace, and drips with shoegaze sensibility.

On the album’s title track, fuzz guitars fill the air and meld with intriguing vocal harmonies. “Hollow Hollow Eyes,” with its echoing vocals over organ-like synths, foreshadows the following track, “Girl in Black.” Arguably the most well-crafted song on the album, this song is the slow, stand-out track. It sounds indulgent at first, but gradually grows into an echoing, eerie, gorgeously-haunting and sweet ode to, of course, a girl in black.

Crocodiles manage to get from point A (the initially ominous first notes of the opening track, “Mirrors”) to a vastly different point B (the final, hopeful notes of “All My Hate and My Hexes Are for You”) unscathed. Sleep Forever is simultaneously creepy and catchy, smoothly shifting between dramatically different moods.