Crystal Castles (Bonus Track Version)

iTunes Review

With a look that's predicated on leather, thrift store threads and dramatic swatches of mascara, and a sound that's ripped straight from vintage arcade cabinets — the band’s name actually stems from an Atari title — Crystal Castles are too-cool-for-school on the surface and stunning when it comes to pummeling your stereo. Even when Alice Glass' vocals are split into stammering phrases by Ethan Kath, a producer/multi-instrumentalist who has a second career remixing artists like Klaxons, Bloc Party, and HEALTH, the art-damaged act that helps "Crimewave" become a candied but claustrophobic piece of electro pop. The more you listen to this debut album, the clearer Crystal Castles' vision becomes. They're deadly serious and unnervingly self-conscious — in a constant battle between darkness and light, really — but that's exactly what lends credence to their sci-fi soundtracks. Aside from glimmers of sadness and sun-baked hope (the ambient haze of "Tell Me What To Swallow," the surprisingly gorgeous "Vanished," which swipes its vocals from a Van She song called, err, "Sex City"), Glass is essentially leading Crystal Castles through a postmodern hardcore album, bursting at the bit-crushing seams with distorted jams like "Alice Practice" and "xxzxcuzx Me." We wouldn't have it any other way.