The (Finally) PopNarcotic Top 20 Of 2009 (Cont.)

18. Crocodiles, Summer Of Hate

I still remember the first time I heard the Crocodiles song "(Soft Skull) In My Room"; I thought for sure they were going to swing right into the riff from The Fall's "Cruiser's Creek", and I thought to myself, "Self, this sounds like someone marrying Jesus & Mary Chain to The Fall and that sure is a brilliant idea I wish you'd thought of". Further confessions: this is a record with a handful of standout tracks ("I Wanna Kill" re-writes the JAMC chestnut "Happy When It Rains" delightfully subversively; "Sleeping With The Lord" could've been a vintage Spacemen 3 chilldown hymn; the title track is also a glorious salute to Kember and Pierce that no fan of Spiritualized should miss) with what sounds like a lot of filler thrown in. Thing is, when you have songs in your arsenal like these--songs that give you swagger and spit and verve--sometimes that's enough. This is one of those "bands to watch", because they very well could have a start-to-finish era-defining album in their future.

"(Soft Skull) In My Room"
"I Wanna Kill"
"Summer Of Hate"

The PopNarcotic Top 20 of 2009:
18. Crocodiles, Summer of Hate
19. The Idle Hands, The Hearts We Broke On The Way To The Show
20. The Pretty Things With Phillippe DeBarge, S/T