Crystal Castles (band)



"we are crystal castles we are 1 boy and 1 girl we are named after She-Ra's home we play rough"

- Crystal Castles

""The fate of the world is safe in Crystal Castles.""

- She-Ra

Crystal Castles, an electronic Chiptune-esque band, are composed of Alice Glass and Ethan Kath. They cause quite a bit of ruckus with their live shows, and often make good use of strobe lights and whatever unfortunate soul is working security. With anything they do, the reaction is always divisive, though their fanbase cherish them lovingly.

They were the subject of some controversy when they were accused of violating Creative Commons licenses, by stealing artwork and samples from other artists. Specifically, a drum sample by Lo-Bat which featured on Insectica and the usage of a black-eyed Madonna as an album cover.

These issues were seemingly resolved when they retitled Insectica to 'Crystal Castles vs Lo-Bat', and it soon became apparent that the artist who created the Madonna image was prolonging hostilities as he was benefiting from the exposure -- Crystal Castles tried to pay him for the image but he refused to provide them with the necessary details.

Their influences include murder, blank looks on girls, and knives.

Alice is in charge of vocals and creating havoc, and Ethan mostly does the laptop work.

They have released two studio albums, both self titled, in 2008 and 2010. They have also released seven singles thus far: "Crimewave (Crystal Castles vs. HEALTH)," "Air War," "Vanished," "Courtship Dating," "Celestica," "Baptism," and "Not in Love (ft. Robert Smith)"

They are unrelated to the Atari Arcade Game.

Tropes that apply to Crystal Castles
""I’m a natural blonde, but that blonde hair, big tits idea of what men want, it’s now really unfeminine.""
 * Angrish: Sometimes it's distortion, but the lyrics can dissove into this occasionally. Definitely happens live, though.
 * Careful with That Axe: "Doe Deer"
 * Driven to Suicide: The narrator in "Suffocation" seems as if they definitely have been.
 * Dye Hard: Alice Glass is a natural blonde, but dyes her hair black.

"Feel so good, you said it before. To your feet, you fall to the floor. Deep inside, you still want more. Deal or not, you look to the door."
 * Intercourse with You: "Through the Hosiery":

"Bronze by gold heard the hoofrons, steelyringing imperthnthn thnthnthn. Chips, picking chips off rocky thumbnail, chips. Horrid! And gold flushed more."
 * Keep Circulating the Tapes
 * Last-Note Nightmare: "Untrust Us" is a rather soft (albeit crazy) song, which ends with the abrupt wailing of a guitar.
 * Long Title: There's a demo floating around the Internet called "Why Do You Cry Every Time I Fuck You?"
 * Lyrical Dissonance: Their bouncy, call-and-response single "Courtship Dating" is about human taxidermy.
 * Nightmare Fetishist: CC's lyrics constantly reference sexually transmitted diseases, abortions, injury, mutilation, and corruption of innocence. They said in an interview before that they wanted to make an album that would "simultaneously make everyone vomit at once" but they seriously take it Up to Eleven.
 * Non-Appearing Title: Almost all of their songs.
 * One-Woman Wail: Tell Me What to Swallow
 * Perishing Alt Rock Voice: Alice does this in "Celestica".
 * Performance Video: A cross between this and Surreal Music Video for "Baptism," their second single.
 * Self-Titled Album: Both of their albums.
 * The Silent Bob: Ethan can come off as this, but he's actually more talkative than his stage persona would lead you to believe.
 * Single-Stanza Song: In Doe Deer, Alice screeches "Deathray!" over and over.
 * Spelling Song: "Mother Knows Best". H-E-R-P-E-S.
 * Star-Making Role: Their appearance on Skins boosted their publicity a lot.
 * Studio Chatter: In the middle of "Love and Caring", you can clearly hear Alice snap, "What the fuck is this? Oh, it's the bass."
 * Textless Album Cover: The cover of their second self-titled album.
 * The cover of the first album (at least on iTunes) is this as well.
 * Word Salad Lyrics: "Air War", which samples Ulysses by James Joyce.