Live Review

Crystal Castles – Digital, Brighton

• 29th Feb 2008

Brighton as a city has always had a fondness for dance music, in the city on any Friday or Saturday night the clubs rule and the live music scene goes off in a quiet sulk. Only occasionally does something hit that satisfies both parts and tonight Canadian duo Crystal Castles are our saviours.

Focal attention lavishes it self on front woman Alice Glass so much so that it would be easy to forget that anybody else is sharing a stage with her; everyone else fading into the dark background. Most of the time she can be found jumping around the stage like someone has attached large springs to the bottom of her feet. Around her strobe lights constantly flick on and off, the audience only able to grab glimpses. Its like someone has photographed the whole affair and we are seeing a series of photos detailing the sticky event in quick succession. Sound tracking this are beats that bleep and bloop melding with waves of distorted synths that hit you with so much force that if you weren’t paying attention, could literally bend you over.

If there is only one criticism it is that the performance tonight is slightly more muted than the last time they headlined this venue several months ago, which had These New Puritans and The Teenagers also on the bill. The amount of time Alice spends swimming over the audience is considerably less. There is no climbing taking place either and at no point does she attempt to climb the speaker stack. It’s as if security have had a quiet word in their ear and have asked them to tone it down a bit but Crystal Castles still give a performance that could put a lot of other bands to shame and chances are nearly everybody here will be back next time round.