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If manufactured, bland production-line mainstream pop is the disease then Crystal Castles could be the cure. Eschewing standard song structure and almost all other pop music conventions sounds like a recipe for mayhem, and that is a word that could be used fairly accurately to describe Crystal Castles output. However, buried under the slabs of electronic noise and shouty distorted vocals are some genuine nuggets, 'Baptism' being one of them. Released from the bands self-titled second album (confusingly the first album was also self-titled) 'Baptism' is reminiscent of what a rave tune would sound like if it was exploded in a microwave. A quick blast of heavily distorted chords gets the track under way before a computer game-like bleeping sequence takes over, underpinned by a simple kick drum pattern. However when the chords are reintroduced the track takes off, with singer Alice Glass sounding like a petulant child shrieking because she's just dropped her ice-cream onto a chainsaw. Probably not for faint-hearted pop pickers, but others will love it.
~Martin Gadgil. Copyright (c) Shazam Entertainment Limited 2010. All rights reserved
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