Electropunk laced with distorted computer-game-noise, a serious dose of ‘je-m’en-foutisme’ and the balls to mix it all with an out of control mic-test by singer Alice Glass. One song (‘Alice Practice’), that was all Ethan Kath (the brain behind Canada's Crystal Castles) needed to get hold of the record deal on which he released debut ‘Crystal Castles’ . That first album, on Lies Records, blew them in the direction of Kiewit (Pukkelpop) in ’08, leaving a somewhat legendary performance in the now defunct Chateau as their Belgian business card. Since then, The ABclub, Botanique, Dour and Trix have also groaned – with pleasure, for sure – under the duo's euphoric live sets.

That Kath prefers to work on his beats more than his album titles, was pretty obvious with successor ‘Crystal Castles (II)’. That album provided him with a huge radio hit - ‘Not in Love’, with the voice of Robert Smith – and also with an ‘immortal’ status. They remained true to their style on that album but not to their label, as they moved over to Fiction Records (Polydor/Universal) where the likes of ‘Britain's finest’ Elbow, The Maccabees (on 7 Nov ‘12 in AB), White Lies and Kaiser Chiefs have the Pounds Sterling streaming in.

NME recently mentioned that number III is heralded to follow the summer and forerunner ‘Plague’ certainly sounds just as crazy as the best of their previous albums. “A spring-loaded, euphoria-flooded homage to rave, the perfect reintroduction to Crystal Castles” rejoiced NME and who are we to disagree.

To all the hipsters: don't forget those Ray-Bans 'coz the stroboscopes in AB will be doing overtime again!