Crystal Castles are a marmite band. Their vapid posturing, sense of style over substance, their ability to piss people off at every turn.
What I’ve realised after hearing new song ‘Doe Deer’ *& the rest of the Record Store Day release that it’s the less abrasive, more straight up electro material from them I like. Hear the songs from the 12″ including ‘Doe Deer’ and three other tracks from 2004. ‘Doe Deer’ is built on a cool frantic distorted melody (like Pendulum or The Prodigy speeded up but is ruined for me by Glass’ elemental screaming).
Their new album maddeningly called Crystal Castles (same title as the first one) continues this dichotomy of abrasive scream-assisted distorted short jams and the electro bleepy, heady 8-bit songs which best describe new songs ‘Baptism’ and this one ‘Celestica’:
The album has since leaked as far as I know but you can read a track-by-track review of the album from a listening party @ Tastes Like Caramel.
Niall Byrne is the founder of the most-influential Irish music site Nialler9, where he has been writing about music since 2005 . He is the co-host of the Nialler9 Podcast and has written for the Irish Times, Irish Independent, Cara Magazine, Sunday Times, Totally Dublin, Red Bull and more. Niall is a DJ, founder of Lumo Club, club promoter, event curator and producer of gigs, listening parties & events in Dublin.
Yeah, it leaked. I think I prefer the first album, but Celestica, Intimate and Baptism are massive
I hated the first first album, Celestica is quite a good track.
oh right, they are the ones with the annoyingly screechy singer who steal music and artwork?
‘Through The Hosiery’ track is a good un’.
The sooner they stop making music the better off the planet will be