Crystal Castles – Crystal Castles
Different Recordings
Reviewed by: C. Malpaso
9/10
An old co-worker, bragged about spending $80 on a vinyl single of Crystal Castles – I wondered why the hell anyone would spend so much but then, as you can guess, I actually listened to Crystal Castles and understood. Immediately the prospect of yet another 20 hour day of working two jobs lifted as those first few beats of ‘Crime Wave’ off their debut album reached my ears. The bits of video game samples and the rawness of live drums returned the blood to my body, just enough that I could feel human again, at least while listening to them. As a matter of survival I kept the few songs on myspace playing until the long day of constant demands and boredom ended.
After several months of obsessive listening ‘Courtship Dating’ still has the kiss of life that wakes me from the most hopeless of comas, which I find myself in nightly. In fact, I don’t just want to hear the song over and over I want to BE the song, I want to walk around the city and have everyone hear it emanating from my pores.
It is a one-woman dance party in my chair as all I want to do is move to the beat and the sounds Alice makes with her voice, the indistinguishable – therefore more precious sounds. The beats beating into my heart get me through the long sleepless nights of working alone in an office, in an empty building in San Francisco.
Crystal Castles make music with their fists, and make the big punch in the gut that arouses all my hurts, fears, loves and opinions – all the things that keep me from happiness and unhappiness.