Two years ago the Canadian electro-rock duo Crystal Castles broke through with a remix of “Not In Love” – you remember it, that track featuring Cure frontman Robert Smith. Through a heavy, gothic ribcage of wild electro-punk and lacerated layers of noise, it allowed us to see that there was a heart there too.
Crystal Castles: III
CD | Crystal Castles ●●
III electro (Fiction/Universal)
It didn’t however, herald a transformation. True, Crystal Castles sound a bit more coherent now. But amid the cold, synthetic retro-electro, you still have to search hard for emotion. It is as if the duo wants to teach this doomed world a lesson by having the wispy vocals of singer Alice Glass fight a losing battle with the beats of knob-twiddler Ethan Kath. On “Plague” they are covered up by crude rave sounds; elsewhere she is muzzled by irritating game console noises. It is only on the second half of the record, when her vocal parts become more delicate and are interwoven with the cold wave music with more suspense and mystery, that everything seems to fall into place. Indeed, on the closing song, “Child I Will Hurt You”, Glass is finally rehabilitated with something that, in the grim imaginative world of Crystal Castles, you might call a soothing lullaby.
10/12, 20.00, €20/23, Ancienne Belgique
III electro (Fiction/Universal)
It didn’t however, herald a transformation. True, Crystal Castles sound a bit more coherent now. But amid the cold, synthetic retro-electro, you still have to search hard for emotion. It is as if the duo wants to teach this doomed world a lesson by having the wispy vocals of singer Alice Glass fight a losing battle with the beats of knob-twiddler Ethan Kath. On “Plague” they are covered up by crude rave sounds; elsewhere she is muzzled by irritating game console noises. It is only on the second half of the record, when her vocal parts become more delicate and are interwoven with the cold wave music with more suspense and mystery, that everything seems to fall into place. Indeed, on the closing song, “Child I Will Hurt You”, Glass is finally rehabilitated with something that, in the grim imaginative world of Crystal Castles, you might call a soothing lullaby.
10/12, 20.00, €20/23, Ancienne Belgique
Read more about: Muziek
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