For a band that supposedly found its signature sound by sheer accident-Alice Glass and producer Ethan Kath were screwing around with some echoing mic effects - the outfit Crystal Castles has come a long way. The duo is the toast of the blogosphere, and Pitchfork in particular. Just to keep things interesting, they've continued to maintain an air of mystery by rarely granting interviews and being evasive or deliberately antagonistic when they do speak with the press.
But no matter what their dealings with the media are like, Crystal Castles' music stands on its own. The band's songs are beautiful, shimmering things, but the "crystal" quality in them is just as ready to explode into jagged stakes as to melt into fog on each track of their second LP (which is self-titled, as was their first).
Fans loved the abrasiveness of their debut, awed by piercing squeals. At times, it sounded like a Korg being trampled to death by wild animals. But on their follow-up, Alice Glass can switch off that stabbing punk energy and deliver vocals that are ethereal, even seductive. Listen to tracks like "Celestica," where her voice drifts through an airy cloud of synth, like a spirit in a dream.
Never one to pass on the chance to shock you awake, the record follows that track up with their first single, "Doe Deer," one of the scariest songs they've produced. The pounding beat sounds like the klaxons of a charging robot army, and Glass' voice becomes an aural weapon, torn and frayed by distortion.
There's a lot going on with Crystal Castles' music. If you were pressed to pin down their influences, you'd have to list punk and even club techno. But there's dream pop in there as well-and even, more often than their skinny-jeaned fans may like to admit, shiny radio pop. The end result is something that's a blend of light and dark, a dance club nightmare that's as disorienting as it is catchy and cathartic.
The pop influence shouldn't really be that much of a shock-the band got in some trouble early on for posters using an image of Madonna's face with a bruised eye, a visual that sums up their sound pretty well. Like many children of the '80s, they're more than comfortable borrowing slices of commercial pap and twisting it, re-knitting their own weird web out of those threads, whether they be She-Ra or a crystal-studded Chanel insignia.
Added to that familiar pop landscape are synthetic twinkles and alarms, and certainly alien vocals. On songs like "Year of Silence," the listener has to assume that Alice Glass isn't even speaking English, but some made-up language that's further obscured, again, by electronic distortion. On some songs, the distortion blurs the human qualities of her voice, leaving mechanical laments that, queerly, you still find yourself feeling relating to.
Of course, the best way to experience the music of Crystal Castles is by listening to it live. Get Crystal Castles tickets online today.
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