Crystal Castles

Crystal Castles

August 02, 2008

By Mr. Marlowe

**** / ****

Released 2008

I’ve seen the sort of thing Crystal Castles does on their debut album before. However, never have I seen it accomplished 1/10^th as brilliantly. I am talking, of course, of the incorporation of video game bloops, beeps, and pings into a pop music format. I am not talking, however, about a simple remix and calling it a day. Oh, no. This, my friends, is the real deal with Crystal Castles taking familiar 8-bit video game nostalgia and transforming it into a brilliantly outrageous combination of The KLF meets Prodigy meets Super Mario Brothers updated for the modern indie crowd.

All Your Base Are Belong to Us may have set the bar for video game inspired music but Crystal Castles takes that bar and launches it into the stratosphere. One listen to the lo-fi pandemonium of Alice Practice or the droning genius of Crimewave and you’ll be hooked. Hooked, that is, if old school video games ever meant anything to you. If that’s not your bag than Crystal Castles will seem absurdly stupid rather than absurdly electrifying. But that’s OK. Whatever the case, the sonic assault will grab you one way or another, never letting go until the high score is smashed to smithereens.

Other than the obvious trick of pulling this sort of sham off in the first place is the amazing discovery of Crystal Castle’s diversity. You’d think a few funny electronic devices and a female screamer could only sustain interest for a song or two. That, however, is not the case. The band emphatically displays their chops with 16 distinct tunes that ebb and flow, holding interest throughout while pushing the video game pop shtick to previously unexplored territory.

In reviewing this musical oddity, it’s difficult choosing which song to analyze and how to analyze it because the songs are surprisingly complex and maddening to break down. While a song like Reckless could serve as the greatest space shooter soundtrack ever, Black Panther takes a similar template then twists it ever so slightly with a few textured flourishes and transforms it into techno gold. Compare those two tracks with the aggression of Love and Caring, which deigns to combine Nine Inch Nails with The Yeah Yeah Yeahs, the strangely sinister romancer Courtship Dating, the ultimate song for geeks in heat, or the trance and burn of Through the Hosiery and your head will spin. Nearly every song on the album is a certified gem capable of transporting the listener from one video game cartridge to the next. Brilliant!

Like the good old days where hour upon hour was whiled away pushing buttons on the original Nintendo Entertainment System, Crystal Castles offers the diversity, the precision, the repeated playability, and all the bells and whistles necessary to lock you in and haunt your dreams. Musical purists will scoff at sounds like this but those who understand what it all means will pee their pants with delight. Some of us have dreamed for almost two decades about an entire album like this dropping from the heavens. With the discovery of Crystal Castles, I can happily inform that our wish has at last been granted.

Up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right, B, A… now you’re playing with POWER!

Best Songs: Alice Practice, Air War, Courtship Dating, Reckless, Crimewave