Canadian duo Crystal Castles have followed up their debut self titled record with yet another self titled record. Crystal Castles (2010), while shying away from the kind-of radio friendly singles from their debut such as “Alice Practice”, also loses the perfect mixture of fun, doom and experimentation that their debut has. While experimenting is never a bad thing, Ethan’s gone a little too far down the wrong path this time, and come up with an altogether bland, dreary final product.
I think what I miss the most is the 8-bit sounds from the first record. When they went, all the fun in their debut also went. Not that this is necessarily bad – hey, the album cover doesn’t exactly suggest “Yay! Lots of fun to be had on this album!” But they don’t do the doom and depression right. You can tell they’ve tried, and props for that, but it’s a little bit half-arsed and half-cooked. There’s been too much effort spent on making the record dance-able, and not enough on giving it the right atmosphere and feeling. In general, it sounds like someone’s taken Nine Inch Nails, made it more like house music, and flushed it through the toilet of bad-atmosphere (I couldn’t come up with a simile for something with lame atmosphere.)
That being said, Ethan still makes good use of noise in his second attempt, and, as before, the best songs are the ones in which Alice shuts her hole and lets Ethan work his magic. I still don’t get why everyone considers CC a “band”. As far as I know, Alice doesn’t do anything except for sing/scream in a few tracks, and not even the good ones. The standout tracks on Crystal Castles II are definitely the ones without Alice that retain the dance-able beat and chopped up samples which made the first album brilliant. Her voice is used in many ways, but most of them are hardly her and mostly Kath taking her vocals and mushing them into something entirely different.
Crystal Castles II is a jack of all trades but a master of none. The good tracks are too sparse for my liking, with too much shit to sift through in order to get to one. It’s good, yeah, but it’s not great, it’s just.. meh. Personally, I’ll look forward to any solo Ethan Kath release, but I haven’t got my hopes up for Crystal Castles’ future. And I want more 8-bit.
6.9
Choice tracks: Violent Dreams; Vietnam; I Am Made Of Chalk
If you like: hmm, well, it is original, I’ll give it that. Maybe The Future Sound Of London; Justice’s softer stuff.
Posted by Pearly 
Electronic juggernauts Faithless have departed from their recent delve into trip hop and returned to their roots in pure house music. In Not Going Home, the trio drop their politically conscious lyrics in favour of dance-hall influenced lines such as “I watch the rhythm slide right up your dress”. Maxi Jazz’s smooth, gravelly vocals are sure to melt even the coldest heart. The production work is also great, with Sister Bliss and Rollo sticking to repetitive, catchy hooks and clever vocal effects, all set against a typical house drum beat. It all sounds very simple, but to put it all together and get it to work is a complex task.
They’ve been away for a while, but Massive Attack’s fifth studio album has definitely let them re-stake their claim as the kings of trip-hop. Even though Heligoland is their biggest departure from the true trip-hop sound, it’s equally as good as any of their previous work, if not better.
With great power comes great responsibility. As the creator of this ridiculously popular and widely read blog, I sometimes find myself responsible to promote awkward and underground releases. Such as this one. glomag is a member of the genre called “chiptune”, or “8-bit”. This release, as well as all his other releases, was completely composed and recorded on a Nintendo Game Boy (except for an overdubbed guitar on track one, and vocals here and there).
Mike Skinner, better known as The Streets, is a distinctive, original, and kind-of decent North London rapper. His hooks are okay, his vocals aren’t that great but they work in the context, his beats are fine but it’s his lyrics that really stand out.
