Crystal Castles

Crystal Castles

[3/5]

Toronto’s Crystal Castles have become hot shit in the world of synth terrorism thanks to some killer Bloc Party and Klaxons remixes. So it makes sense the Atari-core duo’s label wants to keep their self-titled debut away from file-sharers. A few songs on the band’s advance CD fade out before they’re finished, rendering their sine-wave electro and 8-bit-keyboard diffraction… Even worse, almost half of Crystal Castles’ tracks appear only as 40 -second snippets, so their Prince-ly robo-funk… Daft Punk-vocodin’… Yeah Yeah Yeahs-style noise freakouts… Still another snippet has a digital voice drowning out the music, making its seedy ’80s electro [YOU ARE LISTENING TO CRYSTAL CASTLES. HI EVERYBODY]. Based on the songs that are intact-including “Crimewave,” a fabulous CC remix of a tune by fellow retro-mongers Health-Crystal Castles is gloriously danceable and hopelessly chic. But really, it’s… hearing only…judging is…you know? (LAST GANG) Annie Zaleski