The #5 Album On The Tulip Frenzy 2013 Top Ten List ™ Is Crocodiles’ “Crimes Of Passion”
We hadn’t actually heard the earlier Crocodiles albums, which meant we listened to Crimes Of Passion without the bias of some reviewers who had to establish their dissatisfaction with Crocodiles’ intense love of The Jesus and Mary Chain before they could admit how much fun this was. Our reaction to the rock critters’ dismissal was, first, JAMC is not such a bad band to worship. Second, on the magnificent Crimes Of Passion, Crocodiles were amazingly heterodox, quoting everything from mid-Sixties’ Stones to the best contempo garage bands. We have listened to this album weekly for months; it is absolutely great.
Or as we said then:
“Crimes Of Passion is so everlasting yummy we are willing to put it up on our current roster of California Hall of Famers including Thee Oh Sees, Ty Segall, and Mikal Cronin. We can understand why there have been comparisons to the Jesus and Mary Chain, but while such references usually refer to a band fuzzing up a Velvets’n’Beach Boys sound, this reference is different: singer Brandon Welchez sounds a fair bit like Jim Reid, and in context, it does harken to JAMC at their most tuneful.
On Crimes of Passion, Crocodiles throw the Jesus and Mary Chain, Between The Buttons-era Stones, and the garage rock of the Fleshtones into a blender and the result is a Big Gulp smoothee of the best rock’n’roll of the year. If you’re keeping score at home, this is a band to put money on, as the odds are great you’re going to be hearing about them again when the Tulip Frenzy jury goes into deliberations for our 2013 Top Ten List. They’re that good. And between Crimes of Passion and Capsula’s Solar Secrets, we’re reaching for our headphones and the SPF 50, hoping to extend the summer for a few more weeks.”
Tulip Frenzy 
May 13, 2015 at 7:11 pm
[…] sounded like was to cite Psychocandy-era Jesus and Mary Chain. This was a little less true on the wonderful Crimes Of Passion, which took the #5 spot on Tulip Frenzy’s 2013 Top Ten List, and it’s less true here. […]