Crocodiles

Crocodiles' Summer of Hate was a fuzzy, dirty, hypnotic record that was so urgent it came across more like a hurried attempt to exorcise a debut album. While it's only been a year since that release dropped, Charles Rowell and Brandon Welchez have tweaked their hate rock with flying colours. Credit goes to producer James Ford (Klaxons, Florence and the Machine), who took them out to the Joshua Tree desert to help the San Diegans expand their skuzzy, psychedelic horizons beyond the songbooks of Jason Pierce and the Reid brothers. No longer resigned to lo-fi status, Ford has contributed a significant sonic upgrade that makes a slab of swamp rock like "Hollow Hollow Eyes" swell into mind-bending circus music and gives the frenzied shoegaze of "Sleep Forever" a stereophonic blast, both of which seemed unattainable a year ago. Sure, the barefaced nods to the Jesus and Mary Chain on the droning surf rock of "Hearts of Love" and the hypnagogic heartbreak of Spiritualized on "Girl In Black" are still there, but when Crocodiles pay homage, at least they do it to perfection.