Two album reviews in two days? I've been busy haven't I?
Crystal Castles are one boy and one girl from Toronto, Canada. And they are quickly becoming the most infamous band on the planet, thanks to the mental onstage antics of frontmonster Alice Glass.
Their self titled debut opens with called "Untrust Us". This track is OK, but in my honest opinion it is only placed as the opener to lull the listener into a false sense of security for the next track. "Alice Practice" is chaos on the ears, with Alice screaming inaudible lyrics over Ethan Kath's circuitboard theatrics that sound like the Super Mario Bros being assaulted with a sledgehammer. After that, we settle down (a little bit) with "Crimewave" featuring noise-rockers HEALTH, and the 8-bit ambience of "Magic Spells". Don't settle down too much though, because next, we are launched into audio-riot "Xxzxcuzx Me", which is what it would sound like if your Game Boy could fight back, a chaotic mass of Atari sound effect noise and angry vocals.
If you can still hear after that last track, next up is nonsensical electro bopper "Air War", with odd vocal samples over catchy bloops that will be stuck in your head for weeks. After that though is when things really start to get a bit scarier... Next track "Courtship Dating" is a catchy-but-frightening combination of gruesome subject matter (apparently it's about killing an ex-lover and stuffing him) and catchy glitch beats, punctuated by sampled roars and screams.
Crystal Castles like fucking chameleons on this album. the last track was about human taxidermy for christ's sake, and then the next track "Good Time" is actually a very upbeat, cheerful dance-pop ditty, I actually found myself smiling and dancing to this track while typing. Yes, this album is a rollercoaster thrill-ride of epic proportions, jerking between gruesome subject matter to something really happy in a blink. "1991" could've been plucked straight from a Castlevania game, and "Vanished" samples the vocals from Van She's "Sex City". "Black Panther" is a weird track, sounding incredibly upbeat at first, but does in fact have some more horrible subject matter (a mother drowning her children, if you must know).
There are so many tracks on this album, I simply can't write about every track. So I'm going to just give it 5 stars now!
For fans of: Simian Mobile Disco, Justice, SebastiAn, Boy 8-bit
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