Moth Club, Hackney
Former frontwoman of Crystal Castles returned to the scene tonight in Hackney's glitzy Moth Club to a reception of indifference characterised by an idle crowd.
There was once a time, fraught within the late noughties, where the electropunk duo Crystal Castles ruled the experimental, quirky electronic sphere of the underground. They conjured a product which fervently stacked up against the seismically similar likes of LCD Soundsystem and Yeah Yeah Yeahs, compounded by their frenetic live performances which bragged an abrasive intensity. Since their demise in the decade thereafter, frontwoman Alice Glass has since looked to forge a name for herself - marked by the comparatively overlooked release of her debut LP last year, Prey//IV.
Based on tonight’s offerings, it’s not too difficult to discern why this may have been the case. With technical issues plaguing and stalling the set’s inception, ‘Nightmares’ and ‘Love is Violence’ urged their best to ignite Glass’ return to the industrially-drenched repertoire once beloved. Yet the higher-pitched backing vocals underlined in her playback tracks often seemed to detract from her unique vocal delivery, dissonantly drowning out Glass’ unique selling point for tonight’s amassed sold-out audience.
The idleness of the crowd throughout many of the tracks, even passing through more promising ventures of ‘Forgiveness’ and ‘The Hunted’, indelibly revealed a disenchanting nature to Glass’ latest offering - deeming a poorer version of the more modern likes of Grimes whilst retaining some enticing industrial-flavoured aspects from Health or Xiu Xiu’s latest iterations.
All of a sudden, however, as if by magic the crowd grew into an energetic resurgence - marked by a crop of tracks unearthed from Crystal Castles’ catalogue. The dreampop inflections of ‘Celestica’ began this foray into the distant past, revelling in a dance-fuelled fever entrapped within Moth Club’s glistening gold-encrusted four walls, before reenacting two indelibly entrancing chiptune-fuelled tracks from Castles’ debut, ‘Alice Practice’ and ‘Loving and Caring’.
Before many of us took stock of the upturned situation, Glass shifted quickly into her finale solo track, ‘Cease and Desist’, comparatively dulled down by the sloppy on-stage bass playing whirring in and out of this (now) stimulated crowd. Many in tonight’s audience felt tangibly peeved as the show ended soon after it began. Glass’ performance still proved as energetic as 15 years prior but considerably under-developed in the industrial-inflected production continued in her recent solo career - particularly compared to the insatiable sounds re-discovered tonight from Crystal Castles’ indelible aura.
5.5/10
Alice Glass' latest LP, Prey//IV, is out now via Eating Glass Records and can be found below.
Photo is courtesy of David Jackson whose work can be found here.
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