Crystal Castles' Ethan Kath and Edith Frances
As much as I’d like to write an article about Crystal Castles in 2017 without referencing former frontwoman Alice Glass, it’s still too soon. Try as he might to scrub her fingerprints from the band’s legacy, Ethan Kath — whose solo productions turned into Crystal Castles in 2006 when he began to work with Glass — has a long way to go before the project he helped build will emerge from Glass’ looming shadow. Nevertheless, Crystal Castles is soldiering on full-force with new singer Edith Frances. While the quality of the product hasn’t exactly suffered, it’s still missing something that hasn’t yet been replaced.
“My art and my self-expression in any form has always been an attempt towards sincerity, honesty, and empathy for others,” wrote Glass during her highly publicized split from the band in October 2014. “For a multitude of reasons both professional and personal I no longer feel that this is possible within CC.” Glass then began a solo career that’s yielded the 2015 single “Stillbirth,” sales of which benefited organizations like RAINN (the Rape, Abuse and Incest National Network), as well as a self-titled EP that dropped in August 2017.
As the split happened, Kath fired off a bitter tirade of tweets downplaying Glass’ contributions to the band. Even if we assume he was truthful — which Glass insists he is not — in saying that his former bandmate wrote almost none of the band’s most popular lyrics, her presence on their albums and onstage during their live shows was enigmatic, unhinged and simply mesmerizing, something many fans couldn’t see Crystal Castles carrying on without.
All the same, carry on they have, releasing the album Amnesty (I) last year. Blending equal parts gloss and grit with solid songwriting and tight, ear-candy-filled production, the album makes a strong case for Kath’s command of his role in the band. He proved not only that he could make a Crystal Castles album without his former partner — he could make a damn good one. Though Frances provides a dreamy and ethereal presence that complements the record well, even the duo’s best moments together don’t quite measure up to the band’s legacy. Amnesty (I) is a delightful listen, but Frances sounds more like a hired gun, unable to capture the unpredictable vitality that Glass brought to CC’s first three studio albums. That is to say, it’s difficult not to think of Frances as a singer for Crystal Castles rather than the singer.
To be fair, change is tough and often takes time to soak in. As a live band, Crystal Castles can no longer rely on Glass’ terrifyingly hypnotic spectacle and cloak of mystique, but supplements instead with a purist, punk-infused energy that can still make a crowd move. Since Day One, the band’s underrated touring drummer Christopher Chartrand has injected their robotic studio tracks with a dose of primal rage.
As Chartrand proved during Crystal Castles’ set at Bonnaroo this year, his role is more crucial than ever. He and Kath lock in tight, banging out undeniably danceable fan faves with seemingly twice the amount of energy of the recording. It goes without saying that the shoes of show-stealing wildcard Glass are impossible to fill; and for the better, Frances does something else entirely. She remains mostly stationary, offering a very competent take on the band’s back catalog that’s menacing in a different kind of way. While songs from Amnesty (I) feel like they come from an Ethan Kath solo album, even when performed live, Crystal Castles looks and feels like a cohesive unit in 2017 more than ever before.
This isn’t as drastic a personnel change as say, Van Halen hiring Sammy Hagar, and nowhere nearly as questionable as A Walk to Remember actor Shane West fronting the reunited Germs. Instead, we’re witnessing the growing pains of a band reinventing itself while clinging to a brand inseparable from the woman who walked away from it. We can hope the relentless touring CC is engaged in will continue to shape the band’s workflow and sound as much as it has in the past. Meanwhile, both Crystal Castles and solo Alice Glass continue banking on what they do best — moving club and punk music into scary new places and keeping us all dancing along for the ride.
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