Crocodiles

Drummond and Balfe produced the album, with Hugh Jones as engineer. It was recorded over about three weeks at Rockfield, while Rescue had been cut earlier in the year at Eden Studios in London with Ian Broudie producing. The US release came on Sire in December 1980. The US version and the UK cassette added Do It Clean and Read It in Books, which were left off the UK LP over a mistaken worry about an obscenity.

It reached 17 in the UK and went Gold in 1984. NME's Chris Salewicz called it probably the best album of the year by a British band, and Rolling Stone's David Fricke gave it four stars, describing themes of isolation, death and emotional bankruptcy. Pitchfork scored it 8.2 and AllMusic gave it five stars. NME placed it 28th on its 1993 list of the best albums of the 1980s, Uncut ranked it 69th among the great debuts in 2006, and it appears in the book 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die.

Rolling Stone's David Fricke, reviewing it in April 1981, said McCulloch specialised in apocalyptic brooding, with Jim Morrison style yells and Bowie-like inflections, and placed the band beside the Doors, the 13th Floor Elevators and Syd Barrett's Pink Floyd. In his 2004 Pitchfork review of the reissues, Joe Tangari said Pride and Do It Clean hit hard, and that Rescue turns a chorus that should sound like a plea into a rallying cry. The Guardian noted that the 2003 reissue added early out-takes and the live Shine So Hard EP.

The cover was designed by Martyn Atkins and photographed by Brian Griffin, with the band posed in a woodland setting lit by hidden coloured lights. It began a series of elemental covers across the first four LPs.