“Perpetual Sequence” is the ninth full-length album by Croc Shop, the electronic based act featuring long time members Mick Hale and vMarkus. From that new album the band now presents a brand new track and video: “Midnight”.
The 11-track album itself is available from Bandcamp. You’ll notice that the band goes for a post-electro, pop & synth-rock approach with occasional nods to their goth-rock and electro-industrial origins.
From Crocodile Shop to Croc Shop
Originally formed as Crocodile Shop in a flat above a record store in West Berlin, the band was formed after Hale and Werner ended their previous new wave project, Mod Fun. Originally a three-piece band (guitar, bass and drums) with drummer John Figlar of Lord John fame, the group’s first release was the 1987 EP entitled “Head” released on the Minneapolis-based Susstones Records. The band released their debut album, “Lullaby”, in 1988. Produced by Dave Fielding of The Chameleons, the record displayed dark goth-rock influences, but they subsequently transitioned towards an electronic-industrial sound as they began replacing band members with machines, releasing “Celebrate the Enemy” in 1993.
Crocodile Shop’s debut on CD came about in 1993 with the release of the album “Celebrate the Enemy” on Tinman Records. The album was produced by Chris Randall of Wax Trax! Records and Sister Machine Gun. The album was followed up by the remix EP “Crush Your Enemies”.
In 1995 they signed to Metropolis Records and issued the albums “Beneath”, “Pain”, “Everything Is Dead And Gone”, “Order + Joy” and “World”. The last of these was their first album under the shortened name Croc Shop. On a sidenote, Side-Line magazine called “Order + Joy” Crocodile Shop’s “best album ever”, hailing it as a return to their earlier and gritter EBM sound.
As the band’s popularity in the electro-underground grew, Mick Hale began working on other side projects releasing two electro-dub albums under the name Division #9, and teaming up with V. Markus as progGREX.iv.
2004 saw the release of “SEA” (Self Extracting Archive), which was a double CD “Best Of”. Pursuing other musical interests, group mainstays Hale and vMarkus then took a longer than expected break from recording together.
Fifteen years later the band began to work on new material that resulted in “Resist!”, a nine song digital album released in 2020, followed by “(TRiP): The Rest In Pieces”, a thirty track “Rest Of” Croc Shop that featured tracks not included on “SEA” as well as a number of remixes.
