We named The Croaks a band-to-watch at the tail end of 2023 when their debut Croakus Pokus made our Local Faves list, and now these Boston folk rock bards are back with a new single entitled “Poppy”. While The Croaks pull from some of the same classic British folk and turbulent post-punk motifs from Pokus, they’ve expanded to a four-piece (including the addition of other AP fave Paper Lady‘s Alli Raina on bass) in the time since, beefing up their sound and zeroing in on the beguiling magic of their dark age futurist attack. Known for donning early century clothing on stage and preferring Olde English fonts in their dispatches, The Croaks certainly have a keen sense of style and a sharp brand of inter-band humor to match their out-of-time melodies and string-laden instrumental heft.
The first taste of a forthcoming EP, “Poppy” also comes with a heartwarmingly silly video courtesy of local artist Jed Hardy in which drummer Denver Nuckolls plays a sort of spiritual god (complete with period appropriate bard hat and ruff) requesting beach-y tributes from rest of The Croaks as sea creatures in satin blue slug suits. The North Shore never looked so old.
Watch the video for “Poppy” below and read on for some thoughts from The Croaks.
AP: What would you call the blue suits you are all in? Also how did you catch that lobster?
Anna Reidister: Slug nuns.
Haley Wood: Sarah the Lobster came to us as simply as she left us.
Alli Raina: Moon slugs.
Denver Nuckolls: what lobster…?
AP: Why is this the first single from the EP? Are there themes here that tie into the rest of it?
Anna: My friend Jed Hardy called me one day and said he wanted to make a music video of us wearing baby blue satin sacks. Obviously we needed to do it. The idea ended up fitting best with “Poppy” for multiple reasons—feeling, timing, lyrics. Thematically it’s mostly about class struggle and solidarity, but through the POV of a hog named Poppy. Creatures are the connecting thread on this upcoming EP…
Denver: “Poppy” feels like a proper introduction to our cast of creatures and the happenings of their individual worlds… and how in fact they do relate to the one we find ourselves in.
AP: What is it about medieval times or dark ages motifs that you find so inspiring?
Haley: I think many people are reminiscing for a time with less visual stimulation, fantasy themes, perhaps we can relate to serfdom..
Alli: There’s something enchanting about medieval times. Knights, mythical creatures, having squirrels as pets. I think we all like to exist there for a while when croaking.
Denver: The ways that humans faced the world is vastly different from our present day, but the relationships between the self and the other pervade.
Anna: I always hated perspective drawing, so I was naturally drawn towards medieval visual styles. There are a lot of parallels that can be drawn between the Dark Ages and the digital dark age of late stage capitalism. It’s certainly a bit of romanticism and escapism for me. I’m big into Lord of the Rings and other high fantasy media.
AP: How does your background in visual art play into how the band is styled?
Haley: [For the video] we put our fashion lessons to good use to make the amorphous sacks. We also used a lot of influences from art history, medieval portraits and landscapes found in manuscripts.
Anna: In general, we just dress according to our tastes.
Alli: I think all of our personal styles tend to lend themselves to the croak aesthetic already. I definitely lean into the medieval theme a bit when we have a show, but I think it comes across so well because it’s very authentic for each of us.
AP: Live videos you’ve made seem to really play up the theatrical, is the performance element of your shows something that’s as thought out as the music? How so?
Haley: Not nearly as much, although we enjoy donning our slug hats.
Denver: No… it’s a reaction to the personality of the music. Should it need an action, it comes out naturally.
AP: The Croaks were started as a pandemic project, how has expanding to a full band influenced the sound of the band?
Haley: We’ve experimented more with effects, using a pickup for the violin to create a more aggressive sound, and Denver’s ambient and atmospheric sounds.
AP: Where and when did you film the video for “Poppy”? What was the experience like in making it?
Anna: We filmed up in Ipswich and Rockport, MA last October. My friend Jed and I stayed up there for a week. We were staying up til midnight every night finishing up the costumes last minute until the others came up for shoot days. I wish every day was like those days. No day was exactly the same, lots of creative proble problem solving, lots of being weird in public. Making stuff with friends is what life is all about.
Alli: Crawling around in the sacks proved to be challenging, but quite rewarding.
AP: How does living in Boston play into your band and how did it inform this song/the EP?
Anna: Being part of the Boston DIY scene has taught me so much. I’ve made lifelong friends. Haley and I met at MassArt, and I met Denver working at the ICA. the croaks wouldn’t exist without Boston. I grew up here in a big Irish family and have Celtic music (and the salt sea…) in my blood. The EP is pretty fiddle heavy, and Poppy is in 6/8, which our friend Alex says feels like the rocking of a ship in the waves.
Denver: We are also exploring sea shanties…
Alli: I met Anna and Haley at a Summer Solstice festival Anna threw at my old house a few years ago (DIY space in Allston) and that’s how I eventually became part of the Croaks. I love the Boston DIY scene.
AP: What does the rest of 2025 look like for the Croaks?
Denver: EP… tour… croooak…
Haley: Glistening. We are releasing four singles and have several shows booked across the Eastern seaboard, a longer tour to be announced this July! We have lots of new music in the works as well.
Alli: Slimy, gleaming, bountiful.
“Poppy” is out now, follow The Croaks for more.