By Conan The Destroyer
Now I've got to complete honest with you, reviewing the Crystal Castles self titled album was difficult as best to describe. Reasons for it was that they're the most over-hyped and over-rated indie electro band in all of Blogsviles. Every blog I've read suggest some giving their support for CC by saying "Crystal Castles rocks" to even the odd remark from other blogs stating negatively "Crystal Castles sucks balls".
Another factors to consider about this album was the shitstorm of controversy about how they sampled chiptune artist Lo-bat on a unreleased track entitled "Inspection" in which you can hear bits of distortion and some of Lo-bat's self induced gameboy sounding bleeps pitched down a few notes. Lo-bat however applied a creative commons license on said track which according to his official website states that:
"this means you are free to download, listen, copy and spread my music as much as you want ... as long as you don't use it for commercial purposes and as long as you give credit to me. Perfect deal, isn't it? :-)"
Now I also had to do some reading up on this Creative Commons nonsense via wikipedia just to grasp the whole concept of this so-called new licensing, and I still don't get. However you can clearly see it in bold red lettering above that yes you can download, listen and enjoy so long as the end user doesn't sell the tune commercially in which this case "Inspection" wasn't in the final cut of the album, or else all hell would've broken loose.
Now established artists such as Radiohead and Nine inch Nails release their albums under this new license of Creative Commons, as end users had a choice to pay whatever they feel is a reasonable amount (probably nothing by most counts) towards the download, providing of course that they don't sell the albums themselves!
Now this was not the only incident to happen to CC. Another one came in the form of a picture by Trevor Brown which depicted Madonna scoring a black eye (which is what I wanted to do to her after she release that shitvasty of a new album, "Hardcandy"). Apparently the band did not do any research on the image as to who owns the copyright or who drew it in the first place, they just thought it was pretty and slapped it on some tee shirts and buttons and called it their own.....DAMM!
Now for the Album. Even though that this is their debut, there were parts of the album that I found distracting to listen to. Yes I know I'm going to get shot down by some hardcore CC fans, but hear me out! It mostly comes from tracks that drive the whole synth overload bent, mashed with the chiptune-ish sounds. Its already enough that I had to deal with an Atari 2600 growing up when the game didn't load and made all that bleeping sounds that hurt the fuck out of my eardrums!
The tracks that I found to be of a distracting nature are "Alice Practice" (which lead singer Alice Glass screamingly yells the vocals out coupled with the Atari bleeps, dare I say Karen O?), "Love And Caring" and the short interlude "Xxzxcuzx Me". Maybe if they put some of these onto their next album (or an EP),but I personally felt that it just didn't belong into the album. I guess I'm more compassionate towards the more softer offerings from the band, but the tracks aforementioned was far too reminiscent of the now Defunct Berlin band, Atari Teenage Riot.
Now its not all bad news about the album (that is just my opinion), there are great moments where the band play as pseudo shoegazers, and just play some magnificent parts in the form of "Magic Spells", which is very warm and inviting. "Crimewave" featuring Health has a indie pop feel with vocals sounding as if it was driven into a mad compressor and vocoder combo, while "Vanished" has some beautiful vocals (thankfully not from Alice Glass) with some pipping synth lines (its the only way I can describe it frankly).
A friend of mines said she had a mad love for "1991" which comes off sounding very driven and upbeat and not as loud, to which I would agree because of how the track is laid out, its perfect to be dropped into any DJ set none the wiser.
Now there is one track that I'll redeem Ms.Glass's vocal talent on, and that is "Good Time" which sounded rather cheery and repetitive, and I do mean that in a good way though. I'm wondering why it took 9 tracks of her yelling to get to somewhere that shows off at least a shred of her vocal range.....hmmmmm think about it CC.
Overall reviewing the CC self titled debut was challenging at best because I had to listen to it for about 22 times just to come up with something decent to write about and to try clasp it with what the band is really all about.
Yeah I know they illegally abused a Creative Commons license (I mean who hasn't...Timbaland?), but that's just one isolated incident of hearsay from the group. I would say either wait till it hits the bargain bin at your local record store so the hype surrounding them could depreciate in value, or just check on the interwebs what schmuck is giving it away for free via rapidshare.
I wouldn't say that it is a classic album to have in your collection, but as time goes and you see it at your local selling at 5 dollars, then consider adding it to your collection (hey we do have to pay those art directors ya know)
Posts
