Last October, when Alice Glass announced she was leaving Crystal Castles, everyone let out a collective, exhaling “Fuuuuuuuck.”
And then they added another “Fuck” for posterity and notes of despair.
Because, as you know if you’re un-deaf, Crystal Castles is arguably one of the greatest and most influential electronic groups of the past decade. So their demise was as wrenching and aorta-crushing as anything.
However at the time, their manager hinted that it wouldn’t be the last we hear from them, and today, that prophecy has come to a head. Sure enough, Crystal Castles has released a new single called “Frail,” which now lives on their SoundCloud page. Already, it’s racked up 130K listens in less than 24 hours, if that gives you any idea of how badly their presences was missed.
And although original C.C. singer Alice Glass has been replaced by one mysterious “Edith,” her once-bandmate and current Castles producer Ethan Kath had this to say about moving on without her:
Accompanying the track, Kath wrote:
i wish my former vocalist the best of luck in her future endeavors. i think it can be empowering for her to be in charge of her own project. it should be rewarding for her considering she didn’t appear on Crystal Castles’ best known songs. (she’s not on Untrust Us. Not In Love, Vanished, Crimewave, Vietnam, Magic Spells, Knights, Air War, Leni, Lovers Who Uncover, Violent Youth, Reckless, Year of Silence, Intimate, 1991, Good Time, Violent Dreams etc.). people often gave her credit for my lyrics and that was fine, i didn’t care.
Kath has since removed the statement from the Soundcloud description, probably for sass reasons.
Last year, Alice wrote “My art and my self-expression in any form has always been an attempt towards sincerity, honesty, and empathy for others. For a multitude of reasons both professional and personal I no longer feel that this is possible within CC.”
Eh, could be some bad blood there, but honestly … whatever. We’re just happy to see Crystal Castles has raised itself from the dead.
The new track sounds exactly like what you think a Crystal Castles would sound like. There’s a minute, screaming girl, something that goes like “Csssshhhh” and an 8-bit beat in the background.
What we mean to say is, it’s awesome. And we’re glad they’re back. Because if anyone is going to shriek shrill electro-goth into our auditory canals, it’s going to be them. And we’re going to like it.
Listen and weep:
Lyrics can be found here.
