Crystal Castles Debut Album Review

There are two faces to Ontario’s Crystal Castles, both physically and musically. Comprised of show-stealing frontwoman Alice Glass and the seemingly reclusive beat maker Ethan Kath, the group’s first eponymous album effortlessly flitted between chilled out electro ballads to hard-hitting glitch on a track-by-track basis.

This second self-titled LP changes little in regard to that. Suffering the kind of wrath from some press typically reserved for those accused of lifting artwork, “borrowing” beats and the like – which they kind of did – the duo needed to prove its mettle on LP number two. Dropping a lot of the 8-bit influence from their shtick and integrating an almost choral sound to certain cuts – such as Baptism, arguably the album’s best tune – Crystal Castles might just have found a way to elude their haters and continue on making dance music that many people would be piss scared to dance to. [Jason Morton]