CROCODYLUS RETURN WITH “LIMBO” — A BEAUTIFUL PUNK REBIRTH

Gadigal/Sydney-based garage-punk quartet Crocodylus crash into 2025 with their first new release in over a year — the fierce, fast, and surprisingly elegant “Limbo.” Out now via ORiGiN Music Group, the track finds the long-running band exploring what they call “beautiful punk” — a sound that fuses chaos with emotional depth, intensity with grace.

After nearly a decade together, Josh Williams, Stephen Sacco, Mikel Salvador Jara, and new member Nick Meadows (sax/keys) are pushing their sound into fresh territory, embracing nuance without losing the raw energy that’s defined them since day one. Directed by Nathan Rathsam and Sinead Campion, the “Limbo” video stars Australian film legend Tiriel Mora (The Castle), turning the monotony of the working week into a surreal fever dream.

Having toured with the likes of The Chats, Hockey Dad, and Ocean Alley, and now signed to ORiGiN Music Group for both recording and publishing, Crocodylus are stepping into their next era — one that’s heavier, more collaborative, and brimming with self-assured intent.

1. You’ve described “Limbo” as “beautiful punk” — fast, heavy, but with strings and emotional weight. What does that phrase mean to you, and how did you arrive at this balance between chaos and beauty?

“Beautiful Punk” was said a fair bit when recording this song in particular, we used this phrase as shorthand to quickly articulate a breadth we wanted the music to have. Over the years a lot of our music has been pretty slap dash, we attempted to come at this with a more considered and collaborative approach. Embracing the spontaneity and energy of punk music but layered with what we hope is slightly more nuance than we have in the past.

2. The song grapples with feeling out of place — “not knowing where we fit into the music scene.” After nearly a decade together, how do you see yourselves fitting in now, or is the point that you don’t want to?

I feel that there is a certain yearning to be part of a scene, music is best when it's communal and belonging to a certain place and time surrounded by like minded peers is very important to us. Our sound has changed a bit since the last time around and we find ourselves being inspired by new people, art, movements. I feel it's natural to want to fit into these new surroundings. Also the fact that we have been around a bit, to once be the young band on the bill to now looking at who’s coming up and being inspired by them. It's a cool ecosystem that we crave and to a certain extent I think inter-personally wise we all fit into the Australian music scene, it's a small scene and when you hang around as long as we have you get to know people for a long time and make cool relationships.

3. The “Limbo” video turns the monotony of the working week into something absurd and surreal, starring Aussie icon Tiriel Mora. How did that collaboration come about, and what was it like having him play out your vision?

Getting Tiriel Mora onboard was massive, we were looking to get someone older and recognisable from the start. We swapped a few names around and our sax player Nick suggested Tiriel, with the information that his mum knew him and had worked with him before! So that got our foot in the door, Nick then convinced Tiriel and his agent that it was a good idea and roughly 3 weeks later we had him and the film crew in Sydney for a one day shoot! Tiriel was really cool and gracious with his time and made the day go smooth as, a real professional. It was really great to have an initial idea stay so close to the finished work, he absolutely nailed it.

4. You’ve just signed with ORiGiN Music Group — both for recording and publishing. How does this milestone shape what’s next for Crocodylus creatively and professionally?

It feels great to have landed with a group like ORiGiN, we’re definitely laying the group work for more releases. That's been heavy on our minds; to release music and tour. Get everything back and running again. There was a general sense of malaise within the band following the pandemic and having what felt like all of our progress taken away. Our team was scattered to the winds. We were very much on our own, we were ready to hang up the hat on Crocodylus. Dan Radburn stepping in to manage the band was a big catalyst in this rebirth we are experiencing at the moment and after a bit of time incubating we’re ready to start taking bigger swings again.

5. From your early garage beginnings to this new, more layered sound, what’s changed most about how you write and play together — and what do you want fans to feel when they hear “Limbo” live on this tour?

Definitely adding our newest member Mr Nick Meadows on sax and keys changed a lot of the sound just by adding a new melodic voice to the band as well as a compositional one. He comes from a jazz background and knows cool chords we don't. Our collective musical inspirations have also changed drastically since the early days and the desire to deepen the intricacy of the music, this has also led to the writing process being a lot more collaborative when before it was quite segmented. We write songs together now and that has led to a new musical vocabulary. I think it'd be good for the fans to hear new music, music that we are proud of and can stand behind. And in turn for the environment of our shows to be exciting and cathartic. We were always expressing ourselves, I just think now we’re a bit better at the execution.