Crystal Castles - Crystal Castles

Crystal Castles - Alice Practice



I know, I know, this album is like eons old in the blog timeline, but it's still relevant. Reason being (other than the frequent debacles the CCs seem to get themselves into), I just decided today that I really like it.

So way back when the Alice Practice EP came out, I was like a little school girl falling in love with the new kid in town. I was totally giddy to hear some truly awesome 8-bit music, stuff unlike anything I had heard at the time. The title track blew me away with it's in your face abrasiveness. I knew I couldn't wait until these guys released a full length so I could regularly get my lo-fi electro trash fix. So I picked up their self-titled record as soon as it came out and was totally underwhelmed.

Instead of the rad, gritty 8-bit glitch on the EP, I got some smoothed out 8-bit groove. Wtf? I mean, don't get me wrong. I love mostly anything even with the slightest 8-bit elements. But almost all of the new tracks (the ones not released on the Alice Practice EP) were not what I was expecting. Sadly, Crystal Castles was much more aligned with "Air War" than "Alice Practice" and that just pissed me off. Why would you make an EP with 3 out of 4 songs sounding like all of the mics were being dragged through dirt and then have your follow up debut be all crisp and clean?

So what I wanted was something to kick my ass while I did my secret dance moves alone in my apartment. That's not what I ended up getting and understandably I was not thrilled with Crystal Castles at first. I listened to it only a fraction as often as I thought I would. But I did listen to it, I didn't write the Castles off permanently. So it took a couple of months to grow on me, and today, as I was listening to it again, I realized, yeah, I really like this album. No, it's not what I originally wanted, but it's still supremely satisfying in it's own way. And maybe if I let it brew for a couple more months, I might even learn to love it.