Crystal Castles self-titled new album is released on Fiction on June 7. Produced by Ethan Kath, tracks were written and recorded in contrasting environments around the world including a church in Iceland – in fact Alice Glass’ vocals recall the ethereal world of Sigur Ros and Bjork. “Year of Silence” is a beautiful mixture of looped incomprehensible vocals and gentler keyboard notes.
“Baptism” introduces itself within a Faithless style, building layers with pulsing bass, electro beeps at the top of the mix, screamo mixed into euphoric synths. Using vocals as a beat there are no words here. The dance beats could sound generic but the sound is industrial; Kath’s beats sounds like a machine, functional. This is a superstar DJ sound but with a fiery front woman. Sixth track “Empathy” credits its namesake by drawing in the listener with a repeated loop and distant and layered vocals, and a more varied tempo is varied. Squidgy but minimal basslines round it off. “Suffocation” brings to mind long nights and huge clubs, with Glass’ vocals sounding more like a DJ’s sample than ever before. Nostalgic rather than progressive, the title brings to mind the sentiment of those old Ibiza dance tracks, imagine waving hands in the air gracefully wrinkling. “Violent Dreams” is a highlight, with male distorted vocals over a slow keyboard wave, and organ-like notes building suspense and depth. “Vietnam” is layered, sounds more frantic and darker, like the duo’s older tunes, with alien vo-coded vocals softly stating “I’m alive.”
By the final tracks on the album, the tempo has picked up. White noise, strong beats, and frenetic digital notes pepper the sound and climb up and down the scales like a marine on acid. Crystal Castles have redesigned themselves into a proudly polished machine.
7/10, out 7 June 2010
Words by Lizzie Simner
