baptism - a dissection

i always get the same, evil feeling going to see crystal castles live. it's something like meeting an old girlfriend, and being pleased but amazingly apprehensive, nervous even, happy but annoyed at yourself. 1st time i heard 'baptism' i was pissed in the taxi and i actually forgot who we were going to see, remembering with a sharp stab. it was fucking gorgeous, fucking rotten.

people think it's a cliché to invest anything in a band, to actually care about them, but despite everything, castles are the one band that mean it, but mean it just the right amount. they are brother and sister in incest -- symmetrical, parallel, complete opposites. the ultimate love or hate band. thieves, artists, ex-community service junk collectors, their sound, because that is the most important thing they have brought, really is the New One. you've waited long enough.

anyway. 'baptism' is a shweet track for several reasons. it's got the trippy skipping-rope music box blip-verse of 'Air War', and then from nowhere a heavy-set fuck trance chorus of absolute pulverisation. Glass' lyrics are the kind of thing you'd find on the prettiest and you always knew most talented girl in class' suicide note: "hold my head underwater/ do my best for my father", she orgasms (really fuckin Freudian, crystal castles lyrics), and then domestic/religious observations "touching in the bath / a rhythm saved for last". Kath claims that he was attracted to Alice as a vocalist because he was "looking for a poet", and it's clear what he saw in 14-year-old Alice's word talent (my favourite lyrics are from Mother Knows Best -


feel her tight between my thighs
from across the football field
its victory that i smell inside
and the smell contains no guilt

h e r p e s i can smell them through her dress
my daddy's wrong mother knows best

c c c is for cunt theres a sickness inside that i need to harvest
broken tramp have you seen her , i tried to love but now ill beat her

h e r p e s i can smell them through her dress
your daddy's wrong mother knows best
she's the one who brings me to life,
when i stab her with my hunting knife
broken tramp have you seen her ,
i tried to love but now i've beat her)


-- Glass' sense of simple, nihilist, narcissist highschool virgin suicide cooldark sex is another layer dats reely sexy when you uncover it.

I like the idea that Ethan is the brains and Alice is the brawn. Ethan is silent and Alice is vocal, but because Alice is vocal she is silent in interviews because she is a dancer, she is Art and Ethan is an accountant, talking Business. Alice is the face of the band, she is the visual and Ethan is the sound, hooded over. in fact, the idea of crystal castles dualism is so attractive it almost puts me off bands with more than 2 members.

anyway, that is not techinically true, because monsieur drummer (although i've heard they have many) is a fundemental part of the live castles sound. tracks like 'baptism' really benifit from live backing, as does the entire performance, even years and years ago when i saw castles in Stoke (because they go EVERYWHERE), in the dingy, sticky black land of the Underground, it was clear that seeing castles live is nothing like listening to them with headphones. for starters theres the STROBES of DOOM, which (because they kept them on the entire show, Alice thrusting the light into peoples faces, at one point smashing some fat guy who was getting a little too fresh with the light itself) actually give a really strange inebriated sense of drugginess if the place is dark enough.

so, now you know a little more about Crystal Castles. next week your mum.

Xndrxw