Album Review: Crystal Castles Amnesty

Alice doesn't sing here any more - but that has not deterred the other half of Crystal Castles from moving forward with this transcendentally batshit-crazy electro project. The idea of Ethan Kath ploughing on minus (genuinely) iconic frontwoman Alice Glass will strike fans as, at first pass, preposterous.

Yet two years after Glass departed citing irreconcilable "personal and professional" differences, Kath returns, with mysterious recruit Edith Frances and a mash-up of spooky EDM and recycled N64 bleeps and bloops that has changed not at all. Recent single 'Char' is quintessential Castles, with haunting synths and vocals delivered somewhere between a mumble and a shriek; 'Sadist' and 'Frail' spin familiar fever-dreams of paranoia and dread. If you didn't know, you would be pushed to tell the difference between Glass's banshee caterwaul and that of the new girl in town. Kudos to Kath : he's replacedÊthe irreplaceable.