Toronto-based electro/chipcore duo Alice Glass (formerly of noise band Fetus Fatale) and Ethan Fawn (formerly of garage-metal act Jakarta) apparently first met whilst doing community work reading to the blind, but since their emergence as Crystal Castles in 2004 they’ve managed to amass something of a cult-like fanbase, thanks in no small part to packed local live shows, ultra-limited 7” runs and the enthusiastic reactions of tastemaking bloggers. This self-titled debut album follows on the heels of recent profile-raising remixes for Bloc Party and Klaxons and collects together the lion’s share of this previously released material alongside a smattering of new tracks. If you’ve heard Crystal Castles’ debut single ‘Alice Practice’ (apparently recorded originally as a secret microphone test and featured towards the start of the tracklisting here), then you’re already familiar with the duo’s overall aesthetic – one built around a collision of punk / New Wave-centred female vocals, punching stripped-down electronic beats and retro, blippy 8-bit synths, a stylistic trajectory that certainly crosses over to the disco-centred collaboration with LA band HEALTH ‘Crimewave’ and ‘Xxzxcuzx Me’, which calls to mind some meeting point between ATR’s Hanin Elias and a malfunctioning arcade game (“Just because we don’t eat flesh / doesn’t mean we fear death”). While the overall effect is certainly infectiously frenetic (you can just imagine these tracks going down a storm at a packed warehouse party – do they still exist these days?), there’s a sense that some of the 16 tracks here are filler more than anything else, with instrumental track ‘Reckless’ venturing dangerously close to anodyne, by the numbers electro-house. While there’s certainly more than a few intriguing moments packed into Crystal Castles’ debut album, there’s the overriding sense that some judicious editing might’ve resulted in a stronger listening experience.
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