Music

It’s reductive and plain wrong to call Crystal Castles’ debut album ‘techno-metal’, ‘eight-bit noise terror’, or any of those other glib descriptions that’ve been trotted out of late. They might, at their heart, have a glitchy, pixelated pulse and play bleepy melodies that confuse ‘Tetris’ fans, but what they do with it, and its accompanying fuzz-bass and ghostly looping, will shame any artist who blames the quality of their tools for any lack of talent.

Crystal Castle’s ageing keyboard (with Atari soundcard, of course) is responsible for something much more than glitchy noise, of which only ‘Alice Practice’, ‘Xxzxczx Me’ and ‘Loving And Caring’ can lay claim to being. Instead, the vast majority of this debut is chocka with seductive, twilight techno (‘Magic Spells’, ‘1991’), a euphoric future hit in ‘Courtship Dating’ and minimal, minor-key gems (‘Untrust Us’, ‘Good Time’) that would find them better suited among the bands signed to electronica labels Kompakt and Morr Music, rather than being aimed at fans of Topshop noise-pop. Not sounding at all like we’ve been expecting, then, this is proof, if ever it was needed, that you can’t judge a band by their first steps.