Crystal Castles - Crystal Castles
Crystal Castles Image
Metascore

Generally favorable reviews - based on 22 Critics What's this?

User Score

Universal acclaim- based on 55 Ratings

  • Summary: The debut full-length album for the Toronto duo of Ethan Kath and Alice Grass.
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 15 out of 22
  2. Negative: 0 out of 22
  1. With Crystal Castles’ infectious, eclectic music, this is easily one of the highlights of the year and a great addition to the super-genre that is electronic music.
  2. Glass’s voice, too, is the same that’s been luring lusty seamen onto the rocks for millennia, but the way it and the drums are textured--so that the machines they’re passed through sound like they’re melting away--brings Crystal Castles to the outer edges of greatness.
  3. It is also, perhaps more importantly, an album absolutely overloaded with spine-tingling, pulse-quickening electro noises.
  4. 60
    What could be a kitschy nostalgia trip, however, becomes something more thanks to the songs themselves. [Apr 2008, p.94]

See all 22 Critic Reviews

Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 11 out of 13
  2. Mixed: 0 out of 13
  3. Negative: 2 out of 13
  1. ThomasM.
    10
    Who cares if previously released stuff is compiled here and there is little new material? It's all friggin' awesome.
  2. Among the most distinctive acts to appear in the second half of the noughties were Crystal Castles. They are not really famous for music but for their riot-like gigs. Alice Glass, the vocalist, would scream, run, climb, dive, spit, and who knows what else. Even a serious injury could not stop her from playing. She is the face of the duo but as usual in such cases the mastermind stays in the shadow. Ethan Khan, the producer, is responsible for Crystal Castlesâ Expand
  3. The debut album from Crystal Castles makes an impression right out of the gate and goes on to take the listener for a wild ride across it's sixteen energetic tracks. Flashing back and forth from melodic 8 bit inspired tunes to screeching noise pop it evokes a sound that people either love passionately or despise; very few people fall anywhere between these two extremes. Expand
  4. MarcR.
    1
    Too bad the band accumulated a reputation of being innovative and building an atari-chip based keyboard while all they did is to ripp off existing songs from other people without giving them proper credit. Expand

See all 13 User Reviews