Crystal Castles - (III)

Crystal Castles turned their blown-out electronics toward something heavier on (III), a 2012 album about oppression and survival that still sounds bruised and defiant.

The Toronto duo of Ethan Kath and Alice Glass had built a reputation on chaotic live shows and abrasive, glitch-ridden dance music. For their third album, Kath produced a record that kept the noise but pointed it at real-world injustice, and it would turn out to be the final album with Glass behind the microphone, which gives it an added weight today.

Plague opens with a throbbing synth line and Glass's voice buried deep in the mix, more ghostly than ever. Wrath of God crashes in with distorted urgency, Affection drifts somewhere between lullaby and fever dream, and Sad Eyes offers the closest thing to euphoria here, a shimmering rush built for dark dance floors.

Throughout, washed-out vocals sit beneath grinding bass and crystalline melodies, creating a sound that feels both beautiful and menacing, like a rave held in a ruin. Even the prettiest moments carry a shadow, and the quiet passages feel like the calm before another storm of static.

It remains one of the most striking electronic albums of its decade, and on vinyl its textures feel even more physical, every crackle and hiss part of the atmosphere.