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Sleep Forever is about accepting mortality, and if its skill represents the possibilities of their earthly journey, long live Crocodiles.
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Jan 11, 2011Forever is a journey through the darker parts of the human mind. Death, love and a strange sense of optimism resonate through the reverb.
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If San Diego's Crocodiles sound flawless on paper, they damn well prove it on record.
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Crocodiles are a talented rock band with a strong sense of songwriting, for sure, but they're also very happy to be playing music, and that joy shines through any amount of fuzz Sleep Forever might throw at you.
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Oct 22, 2010Yes, the distortion might be heavy, but when juxtaposed with soaring synths and Brandon Welchez's echoing vocals, Sleep Forever creates a kaleidoscopic landscape much more intricate than the duo's previous effort.
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Sleep Forever will likely hold minimal appeal for anyone not already on the bandwagon built by Crocodiles' high-profile forebears, but I'm guessing Crocodiles wouldn't have it any other way.
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Under The RadarOct 26, 2010The lyrics are sharper, arrangements are more dynamic, and the songs generally feel larger and more anthemic. [Fall 2010, p.66]
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With the wall of static dialed back a notch, the songs breathe more, allowing for Welchez and Rowell to construct some of their most immediate material.
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Sometimes the results are stunning ("Hearts of Love"); elsewhere, the barrage of studio effects leaves you wondering if they're merely covering up crap songs. Either way, Sleep Forever never bores.
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Summer of Hate felt meek at times, content to retreat into its own shadow; Sleep Forever's many oversized melodies and wider-reaching sound prove that these guys do a lot better taking a few steps into the light.
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For the most part, though, the fuzz has been pulled back enough to reveal an enjoyable but hardly revolutionary set that tends to recall a more ponderous Darklands-era JAMC.
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Sleep Forever is a fine album, but you get the sense that if the band focused on their pop sensibilities as much as they do their more seemingly aesthetic inclinations, it would have been a great album.
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Q MagazineMuch more than a collection of second-hand shoegaze though, Sleep Forever is also endowed with a glam-rock swagger and a fondness for euphoric choruses that fans of Kasabian would do well to investigate. [Oct 2010, p.105]
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Other detractors will say Crocodiles still sound like Spacemen 3 or the Jesus and Mary Chain or a somewhat clearer photocopy of the psychnoiseshoegazepop blueprint. Yet there are times when a photocopy can be sharp enough to leave you wholly satisfied, and ultimately this is the case with Sleep Forever.
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At only eight tracks, Sleep Forever feels self-indulgent, the sketchiness of its songs covered up by its layers of exhausting excess. If Crocodiles want to be more than just a photocopy, they need to start drawing their own lines a little sharper.
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There is the potential for something more than a mildly decent album in Sleep Forever. It's the arrogant self-indulgence that really holds the album back from being what it could be.
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Jun 1, 2011Sleep Forever, if anything, is an assurance of their staying power; they could probably get away with releasing this same record throughout the remainder of their career.