Crystal Castles Ain't Just Bentley Bear

Crystal Castles
Album: Crystal Castles (II)
Song: Doe Deer

Right.  Here we go.  And no, I am so not flip-flopping.

Once upon a time, a friend burned me a CD, the eponymously titled Crystal Castles.  Released in 2008.  Huge critical acclaim.  Named 39th best album of the decade by the influential British music periodical NME.  Was excited to give it a listen.  Cranked up the volume and heard this steaming pile of average.  Sigh.  Meh.  I mean, I didn't hate it.  Sure, Depeche Mode did it better 30 years ago, but that's just splitting hairs.  I considered it decidedly mediocre.  Perhaps fractionally above.  Long story short, after listening to the tune a couple more times I put the CD away and focused on, you know, interesting music.

Subsequently I participated in a few Crystal Castles discussions.  I argued that the band was relatively boring, that the square time signatures, clichéd synth bass, superfluous 8-bit blurbles, and standard, by-the-books melody and harmony (large swaths of I-IV-V stuff) were better suited to acoustic instruments and folk idioms.  I argued that the music was actually terribly conservative.

And then I heard a couple of tracks from their new album, Crystal Castles (II).  On switched the light bulb.  This, my friends, is fascinating music.  Gone are the clichés, gone are the square, boringly stitched together structures, gone -- thank god! -- are the arbitrary beeps and burps.  This music has soul.  This music explores the sonic and textural possibilities of the genre.  This music is progressive.

Now I get it.  And you should too.