Well, that's the first time I've had to write the same thing twice, and no one actually said "you can say that again", but oh well.
It's taken around three years to produce a put together but the debut album from Toronto electronica duo Crystal Castles is finally here and it's been creating a major buzz on the music scene over the past month or so. It was released in North America in the middle of march, but only last week over here in the UK, where is only reached #47 in the charts. Me thinks it may just climb up a bit this week; if it doesn't then British people are a shameful and should be mercilessly slaughtered like dogs!
It's taken three years to get this album out, mainly due to endless touring and promotion, but they obviously explored musical genres at the same time until they were happy with what they came up with.
The result is very much like an American Justice, not American justice per say, we all know what that's like, they have the chair after all. No, I'm talking about Justice the French duo who are most famous for their song 'D.A.N.C.E' that most recently won best video at the American NME Awards 2008.
Much has been said already before spoiling it for you, or letting onto too much. Let the longest review so far, begin!
Review
#1 - Untrust Us
A slow paced opening is initiated under the vocals of death! 'Untrust Us' is at best a dim, half-hearted drone. Maybe it's just their style to piss people off with the very first listen and first track; maybe they like it that way. Personally I like to be blown away on the first track, and this, although it is genuinely good, just doesn't do it for me.
#2: Alice Practice
For what started out as a voice test that was only taken seriously once Klaxons keyboardist ___ got hold of it and started spreading it around and when the track was released it sold out in just three days. If the last track's vocals sounded like death, then these come from the Satan’s daughter; more like Alice in Hell than Alice in Wonderland. If the record carries on like this, I may have to inject myself with some depressants to calm myself down, such is the explosive nature of this - annoying to some but fucking genius to me - song.
#3: Crimewave
Possibly one of the best tracks on the album, it’s a composition of slow beat rock, dumbed-down synths and vocals that sound like C3-PO on crack. This song live is one of the most chilled out mind explosions I've ever heard and the closest thing to my Nan trying to rave that I’ve ever heard. If CC were really trying to delight and piss people off at the same time, then this is the song that makes it. Stonking dancefloor epidemic.
#4: Magic Spells
There's something very poetic about this track, although it’s slightly repetitive and probably my least favourite on the album.
It's quite an experimental track that plays heavily on a bassy background, I sort of the feel also that the vocals don't really fit; this could have been used a lot better as a short skit rather than a full length waste of time.
#5: Xxcuzxx Me
If the world's heaviest person could do ballet blindfolded with a broom stuck up their arse then this is what it would sound. The bass is incredible and the destructive overload of synths and powerful percussion makes for the most extreme track of the outing. I was slightly disappointed not to hear this song in their set on their recent tour, but I hope they play it at Gatecrasher or the NME New Noise Tour.
#6: Air War
One of the most accessible tracks on the album, full of strong 80s influences, which bursts with energy with every beat. It’s one of the most accessible tracks of the album, although I can't really draw any comparisons to other artists, I'm starting to see CC as one of the most unique new acts in the world today. Their energy and presence on record is amazing for a band that comprises of just two; although they do have a session drummer.
#7: Courtship Dating
Definitely my favourite track of the entire album; it's so well crafted and put together, and played live with a session drummer and 5 strobes, smoke and LEDs its transformed into a Stonking phantom of magnificence. I think it’s quite possible that this is so far my favourite track of this whole year so far.
#8: Good Time
"Good times keep rolling, got to escape now", one of the few mellow tracks of the record, that shows their unique depth of sound that is clearly one of the reasons they're the hottest new act on the planet. This music is epic, yet seriously danceable and you don't even need a glowstick to be having a good time.
#9: 1991
A sonic bass and sweet melody foreground place start this track off well, but it’s the shortest song on the record, I would have preferred the track to have been even shorter, almost like an extended skit, but its length leaves the listener yearning for more.
#10: Vanished
Easily one of the best produced songs on the record, it’s a beautiful anthem that shouts and screams with quality. It reminds me of the backing music on the old Pokémon Gameboy games, especially when you're about to capture Mewtwo at the end of the game.
#11: Knights
Epic are words that have been sprung around other reviews around the web a lot about this track, but I don't find this short symphony epic, I find it rather like alcohol, when you feel sick, letting out the pain makes your head feel better, yet if you carry it inside you, you end up feeling as darkly sick and wonderful as the genius of this song.
#12: Love and Caring
The sister track to 'Alice Practice' brutal bass and pathotic screaming from Alice Glass sex up this track more heavily than a Russian bush and French celery in a 80s Eastern European porno. Fookin' joy to my music stained ears.
#13: Through the Hosiery
Standard joy to my ears, the opening is instantly catchy yet pointlessly stupid, but that's how all great music is created I think. Sticking a flanger on vocals isn't very difficult, but it always sounds impressive when you're pissed. Keith Murray's solo on The Great Escape was invented during teaching someone else how to two-tap on guitar, and Slash's best riff came about when he was simply sodding about, and he's never even really liked it, but it sounds awesome.
#14: Reckless
it’s hard to explain in words how similar yet how different some of the tracks on this album sound. An Atari sound chip has helped create the bands primary sounds, and with the fact that the band have said they have no influences, could this be one of the purest records out on the market at the moment.
#15: Black Panther
After 14 tracks I didn't think I could take anymore of this raping of my acoustical measuring organs, but 'Black Panther' has just upped this album from extremely enjoyable to as contagious as the Black Plague. Soon boils will start to appear all over my body as my bodily organs start to give way to this masked rhythm that is now the soundtrack to my life.
#16: Tell Me What To Swallow
I really wish I could tell Alice Glass what to swallow, because it wouldn't be her own microphone! The close of this album begins a whole new chapter of disco music to the world. If you can open your ears and close out all emotions and preconceptions to comprehend how effortlessly epic this track sounds, then you can truly understand the brilliance of Crystal Castles.
Verdict
It’s easy to like Crystal Castles, but what's even easier is to fall head over heels in love with their New Rave destroying, genre splitting Punk-Revival synthesised juice goblets of blood and terror.
I think it's quite possible that this song could be the soundtrack to the Iraq War, its bloody and genuinely terrible, but if you look at the background its where the old and bold of this world trick the young and innocent into killing each other or in this medium go out and spend your hard earned cash on this extreme episode of Indie-Noisia and Disco-Trance.
The genius of this album cannot be fully appreciated until you've given it at least the 5th listen. When you first listen to it, it's hard to see the point of just making uncontrollably stupid noise for the point that you're able to do it. However, the whole point of this album lies in the fact that this music is possible to create, and you know what, it’s the best album I've listened to in almost a year, well that may not sound like very long, but in the music industry these days, a year seems like a millennia. Buy this album, or cheekily download it, and you will find your life has just become that tad bit more of a tonk more exciting, just because a skinny but yet insanely hot Canadian girl put next to 'Satan on synths' are able to turn all the conventions of music on its head just for a laugh. Crystal Castles are the best thing to happen to Canada since they broke away from the British Empire, and what's even more hilarious, is that the Canadian Government are funding this exodus. "Blame Canada, Blame Canada!"
10/10
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