"Plague" by Crystal Castles

I don't intend for this to be a music blog, and don't really think of it as one, but when I have little else to post about and there's good music coming out, it kind of becomes one.

I love the band Crystal Castles. It's not a shocker if you've been reading my blog for a few years. I love their first two albums, which were both self-titled. I also love their version of "Not In Love" with Robert Smith doing vocals. The band has a new album coming out some time this year. I wonder if it will also be self-titled. Anyway, the reason for this post is that there's a song called "Plague" from the new album.



I'm really looking forward to hearing the rest of the new album.

UPDATE: "Plague" is a free download on the band's SoundCloud.

My Favorite Albums Of 2010

It's the last day of 2010, and I'm an opinionated music fan with a blog, so it's probably the law that I have to make one of these lists, right?

While there are still plenty of albums I've been meaning to check out this year that I haven't gotten to yet (Massive Attack, the new Gorillaz album, etc.), these albums really stuck out to me in 2010:





I feel like I haven't stopped listening to Crystal Castles or Plastic Beach since the albums came out, so those easily get the top 2 spots on the list. Also honorable mention goes to Barking by Underworld. I also thought Tron: Legacy, Inception, and The Social Network had really great film scores.

Free Download of "Not In Love"

I wrote in my previous entry about Robert Smith singing on a new version of Crystal Castles' cover of "Not In Love".

You can download the mp3 for free at both Stereogum and Slicing Up Eyeballs.

Crystal Castles' "Not In Love" sung by Robert Smith

The second Crystal Castles album has been one of my favorite albums from 2010. One of the songs on the album is a cover of the 1983 song "Not In Love" by the band Platinum Blonde. Although I'm not a fan of the original version of the song, I immediately loved the cover by Crystal Castles, sung by main songwriter Ethan Kath. I guess it's been around for about a month, but I only just found out the other day that there's an alternate version of the Crystal Castles version with lead vocals by Robert Smith, frontman of The Cure. I can't adequately communicate with words how much I love it. I'm a big fan of Robert Smith, and his voice fits so perfectly with this song that it gives me chills. I also love that it keeps bits of Ethan Kath's vocodered voice as background vocals. Take a listen to the song, you won't be disappointed.

The single is being officially released on December 6th.

UPDATE: If you want to download a free mp3 of this song, click here.