Game Boys strike back

Crystal Castles - Crystal Castles

80%

Let's just get out with it. Electro is hot. From Justice's break out hit "D.A.N.C.E." to Daft Punk's best selling Alive 2007 album to Kanye West sampling the French duo on his chart crushing single "Stronger". Digital destruction has run rampant across the music scene with a deluge of dance hall obliterating, synth fueled jams. One of these electro groups is the much talked about Crystal Castles. The Toronto duo of multi instrumentalist Ethan Kath and Alice Glass became darlings of the blog scene with remixes of everything from the Klaxons to Bloc Party to LA noise punks Health. The album is mostly an amalgamation of tracks that have been released over the past year or so on vinyl. Put together these tracks show evidence of influences ranging from riot grrl to electro clash to goth to pop. Even though Kath and Glass are not doing anything novel in terms of electro 8- bit, their melodic sensibilities are what make this record a stand out release in the deluge of digitally created tunes as of late. Each track seems to burrow into your skull, leaving the unique, dark, haunting melodies branded into your mind like a cowboy searing his name into his steer. While some might deride them as pop glitch, you cannot ignore the fact that Kath and Glass have an ear for something here.

The record itself sounds like a combinations of an Atari one haywire overlaid on driving drumbeats and an affected synth tinkling away a melody that wont let its stranglehold upon you go. "Alice Practice and "Xxzxcuzz Me, Glass snarls and yelps incomprehensible words over a constant stream of Game boy glitch that still comes together into something that you can't put down. On tracks like "Magic Spells" and "Courtship Dating" glimmering synth and haunting ambient noise sticks inside your ear drums causing you to replay it over and over inside your head even after listening to the song 3 hours ago. On the last two tracks however, Crystal Castles show that they should be watched in the future. The only two tracks of the album that hadn't been released in some way, shape or form before the record was released was "Black Panther" and "Tell Me What To Swallow". On the closer "Tell Me What To Swallow" an acoustic guitar strums as Glass sings ethereally, taking the listener on a haitus from the computer glitch rollercoaster of an album. It is in stark contrast to the rest of the record, but fits in an odd way. "Black Panther" is a frantic upbeat race between one synth line and the next over a pounding beat. However, the song still maintains an almost anthemic quality to it with Glass shouting incomprehensible, but why should it matter? Crystal Castles seem to have a knack for simple sound. The combination of Atari pops and snaps with hooks that could kill, Crystal Castles have released an impressive debut, but the future most certainly will hold something even more exciting.