Crystal Castles, (III)
Featured Album
As vinegary and vicious as ever
It’s easy to be cynical about Crystal Castles, to reduce their blank stares and shit-eating sneers to a well-rehearsed caricature of rebellion and pre-apocalyptic rock ‘n’ roll: The Sex Pistols of the Steve Aoki set. But that’s selling their self-assured sound short. Decidedly DIY from the start, it’s as vinegary and vicious as ever on (III), a pressure-cooked LP that melds the mercurial mood swings of singer Alice Glass with Ethan Kath’s volcanic builds, lumbering bass lines, heat-seeking synths and shifty breakdowns that suck the listener into a black hole of absolute despair. That’s the thing about Crystal Castles – the more successful they get, the more miserable they seem to become. And not in a woe-is-me, we-sure-miss-playing-basement-shows sort of way either – their blog-born success ensured they never played basements in the first place. More like a deadly serious document of how far society has fallen, as hinted at in recurring lyrical themes of impurity and oppression, and hammered home by a record sleeve that reprints an award-winning photo of a Yemeni woman holding her tear gas-traumatized son at a street demonstration. Like the most genuine hardcore music of the Reagan era, (III) is a battle cry that can’t be contained, only this time it’s being presented through a web of whiplashed loops and barbed wire beats. Dance music for the end of days, then.
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BillVPon November 14, 2012 at 11:02 am said: This review helped me out. Thanks.
