Does it make a difference in sound quality? Hard to say.
She and producer Ethan Kath have always walked a very fine line between the raw mess of humanity and the sterility of machines, although here Kath turned away from their traditional computer-recording model and went straight to tape.
Like most of her vocals, they've been manipulated and stretched to within an inch of obfuscation. “Light of God dimming weak/Nothing’s wrong, go back to sleep/Lost the will at infancy/Drown them in charity,” she sings on “Kerosene” over a skittering beat and the slow spreading of a flattened bass synth. It's a sense of malcontent returned to again and again throughout. “I didn't think I could lose faith in humanity any more than I already had, but after witnessing some things, it feels like the world is a dystopia where victims don't get justice and corruption prevails.” “A lot of bad things have happened to people close to me since (II) and it's profoundly influenced my writing as I've realized there will never be justice for them,” vocalist Alice Glass explained of the record prior to its release. On their third full-length, Canadian duo Crystal Castles have drank deeper still from the well of discontent, resulting in 12 tracks that paint an even bleaker picture than their heretofore already grim worldview. It is a song of frightening beauty, one in which the unfolding tranquility and serenity does not mask the accompanying dread, but anticipates it.Oppression, injustice, suffering-they all seem typical subject matter for a group whose sound has always been rooted in the paranoid apocalyptic. Absolutely nothing on the release, however, can compare to closer ‘Child I Will Hurt You’. ‘Transgender’ has a nice holiness to it, or at least it sounds like it was recorded in a blown-out church. ‘Kerosene’ manages to be both bouncy and haunting, thanks to Glass’ most decipherable line, “I’ll protect you from all the things I’ve seen.” ‘Affection’ is surprisingly accessible, although that trick was employed better on II tracks like ‘Empathy’. Still, even a coo from Glass will express some horrible trait of humanity, and her voice - and what is done to it - is mostly fine here, if sometimes predictable. Subduing Glass on III actually tamps down the nihilism somewhat. Although an involuntary blood curdling isn’t to everyone’s tastes, anyone who does fancy a generous helping of shriek need only spin old tracks ‘Alice Practice’, ‘Doe Deer’, or ‘Baptism’ to get their fix.
One of Crystal Castles’ greatest assets is Glass’ scream, which is used relatively sparingly on III. ‘Wrath of God’ is the song which comes closest to the scourge we were promised - particularly in the unrelenting wash of noise at the song’s end - but, for every moment like it, there is something fairly run of the mill like the goth rave-up ‘Sad Eyes’. The duo find sure footing sometimes, but not often enough.įor every instance on III set to give the listener an aural acid bath, there are nearly as many that might induce a snooze on the bus, and a dribble on your neighbouring passenger’s shoulder. The run-up to III has promised that Glass and miserablist producer Ethan Kath would deliver the tried and tested formula amped up to 11, but also their setting foot in new territory as well. There are things one has come to expect from a Crystal Castles release: it’s going to be noisy, song titles will carry unpleasant connotations, lyrics - when intelligible - will have little in common with usual dancefloor-aimed electropop, and Alice Glass will scream many of them.