Yahoo! Music Album Review

Released on 28/04/08
Label: Different/PIAS

It is very, very hard not to dislike Crystal Castles, and they themselves will do nothing to help you. Skinny-jeaned, surly and brattish, the Canadian electronic terrorisers glare out from the cover of magazines with a what-you-looking-at attitude and smirk and shrug their way through interviews, seemingly oozing big-mouthed flash in the pan superficiality. They're hardly trying much harder on the cover of their first album, staring behooded at the floor in front of a brick wall like Hoxton zombies.

As you listen to their long-awaited debut though (they were at the forefront of new rave, being featured on the 2006 "Digital Penetration" compilation, but weren't exactly in any rush to cash in), any sense they might be chancers or dilettantes is totally dispelled (not to mention if you've ever caught their bloody-minded live show). Probably the first properly ravey new rave album, it mixes old-school whistles and bleeps with fizzy and burbling synths, tortured 8-bit wails and eerie distorted vocals, striking an admirable balance between emotive, scary, fun and cool as f*ck.

It also resists the temptation to stay on the dancefloor too long. Despite their status as every self-respecting cack-handed indie DJ's current floor-filler of choice, "Crystal Castles" is a varied, well-paced album with two loose groups of songs. On one hand, there's the low-key, pulsing, krautrocky side, recalling The Knife or a back-bedroom Orbital typified by the warm and lovely "Magic Spells". On the other, there's the screeching, bleeping, Commodore 64 being rudely forced by a lawnmower, Atari Teenage Riot side, as evinced by the demented "Air War".

On the latter, incongruously cute noises sometimes spoil the mood. "Crimewave" could be a Metronomy style chilled groove, with robotic treated vocals but is irredeemably marred by what sounds very much like the "boing" noise from "Super Mario Bros" on the NES console. Vocalist Alice Glass, she of the onstage Bacchanalian fervour and disturbing lyrics about taxidermy and ovaries, has a remarkable voice, like a digitised Jennifer Herrema, ranging from bouncing and girlish on irresistibly air-punching former single "Courtship Dating" and the positively sweet and starry-eyed on "Good Times" to terrifying electro banshee on "Alice Practice".

While the bulk of the Castles' unique sound is most likely down to electronic maestro Ethan Kath's range of abused and knackered computers and keyboards, Glass is undoubtedly the mental, bleeding, palpitating heart at the centre of his digital storm. All told, it's pleasant to actually have a buzz album that lives up to expectations; long after people stop talking about them, this album will still be a surprising and compelling listen. It's not so much a sonic cathedral as a rough-and-ready digital fortress, but Crystal Castles are holding it strong.

    by Emily Mackay