Twenty-First Century Father

A newsman, eating his wife's meal, feels
Unsafe
His five children, growing up so close to the war
Smelling it when they walk
Too close to the television
Washing his hands, he feels something inconsistent in the faucet
Looking down, cause to rejoice
He has struck oil!

Juvenile/Spiritual

It's now easier than ever to become a martyr
They're making me in stained glass as we speak
Someone did a number on that Catholic daughter
Her lips are clenched in prayer, she will not eat

There were spirits here today
I found eyeholes in our sheets

Singing hymns by candlelight
Casting out the madness
Meet me on the roof tonight
I'm waiting for an eclipse

Remember Saturday cartoons
Downstairs in the kitchen
Your parents in the other room
Studying religion

How did you come to fall in love
With such a dirty artist?
That poor boy's been growing up
Sleeping with his paint sets

The sun is coming up again
Begin our daily ritual
Worship performed from our bed
Juvenile? spiritual?

It's now early evening, all the TV news is on
Casualties recited to the beating of a drum
The war is in my living room, but I can always turn it off
I leave it there for comfort, can't sleep without the gunshots

The streets are getting cold
It's all I can do to sweat
I tried to sell my soul
But no one wanted that

Romance

Julius Caesar, sprawled out on his bed, eating crackerjacks and playing guitar.

Brush Our Teeth

Set down next to our dying star
With a telescope and a clumsy jaw
I write a book to feed the fire
I exercise before the riot

On the back porch we've got big ideas
Our father's eyes, our mother's fear
This has been our finest year
I find your waist and bring you near

We make sure we have both wept
We start feeling when we last slept
Coffee makes my stomach bend
But I want to be awake when the whole world ends

I get all my old film developed
And see some people
I haven't seen in years

I buy some food then have to sell it
I need that money
For newspapers

For some reason we go to church
There's people there who know our earth
Our ears are dry so nothing sticks
We come home with a crucifix

Let the animals out their cage
Drink and smoke like half our age
We get nervous and start to clean
We get quiet and brush our teeth

I shut down the house and go outside
I swear I never ever felt more alive
Than when I was dying
And she's replying

"Hurry up, into cellar"
Bless this make-believe bomb shelter
A morning meal, a lifetime work
Left to age on the surface

Down there we just talk and spit
Laugh when we both have to shit
Try to feel like nothing's wrong
Waiting for the atomic bomb

Crystal Castles - Crystal Castles

Boy: Hey Girl, how do you feel about electronic music?
Girl: I love electronic music.
Boy: Hey Girl, how do you feel about punk rock music?
Girl: I love punk rock music.
Boy: How would you like to be in a electronic punk rock band and take over the world and shit?
Girl: Okay-- wait... Can I still feign apathy and wear plaid skirts?
Boy: Yeah, whatever.

Shortly after this imagined conversation took place, the boy (Ethan Kath) and the girl (Alice Glass) shoved an Atari 5200 sound chip into a keyboard and got to work. Crystal Castles was born.

The first thing you should know about Crystal Castles is they don't give a shit. They'll sample the French vocals from beginning of Death From Above 1979's "Dead Womb" for for three minutes and then throw in two seconds of the actual song just for fun. They'll record their singer practicing in an apartment without her knowing, put it up on Myspace and get a record deal. They'll remix HEALTH's "Crimewave" and make it embarrassingly better than the original. And that's all within the first three songs.

The rest of the album is comprised of thumping, explosive dance music. And not just "dance" music. Music you will actually dance to. Sure, it starts with a single foot tapping under your desk. But believe you me, it ends on top of your neighbor's dinner table in your underwear shouting, "NO! LEAVE THIS ON! THIS IS GOOOOD!"

This is a common reaction after hearing the album for the first time. By the third or fourth listen you'll be able to sit still long enough to appreciate the brilliant arrangements, chock full of crunchy percussion and catchy hooks, pounding bass and playful synths. You can almost see Ethan performing live, leaning over a table that appears to be puking wires and colored lights, cooly bobbing his head to the beat while his fingers deftly create a sea of arcade sound effects and choppy beats.

While Ethan is responsible for the synthetic half of Crystal Castles, Alice takes charge of the organic, singing in a sneering, throaty yelp. She is the not-so-secret weapon of the group, featured most prominently on "Alice Practice," "XXZXCUZX Me," and "Courtship Date." Her lyrics range from the unintelligible ("Chips, picking chips off rocky thumbnail") to the vaguely sexual ("You're covered in the lotion / That was inside of me.")

It's true that the album is a little top-heavy. Crystal Castles dump all of their tricks into the first half of the album, saving little new for the last five songs or so. But what do you expect from two people so obviously more interested in creating the next great party than the next great record? Inadvertently, they may have done both.

I've found that I am an angrier person when I am listening to this record. Hearing its grinding electronics and shouts of frustration, I feel the urgent need to pump my fist in the air, shave my hair into a mohawk, and spray paint "BUSH SUCKS" graffiti all over the side of my school. If you have the time and energy for this kind of angst, this is the album for you.

Fluorescence And The Boredoms

This year, I am a disillusionist, too much of a dog to be alive.

I am also a large cricket sometimes, in choking hot nights, hearing bat flight every time I close my eyes.
Reaching into my skull, I still get anxiety attacks and trip on your first novel.
In a museum, you talk about responsibility and pray before your pills.
In a human, you walk around with morning clinging to your cheeks, spitting.
And only when surrounded by fluorescence and the boredoms do you get the sensation that you are dying.

I also am a hummer and can whistle when my throat is wet.
On foreign streets, I get a good look at a train wreck.

Everything Wrinkled

You go to Ellis Island to stare at the names
Collect your parachute from the police
You build a little fire, rest your eyes on the flames
Throw your dirty books into the heat

Running naked through
The stadium
With pride in your skin

My sister's got
A rosary
She dresses up in

My pocket's feeling heavy with the ink of my pen
So I better get this down

Shivering at the back door with your books and your fleas
Your Kerouac, your almanac, and your hot jazz beat
If you're feeling empty you should talk to your priest
Or get a little high

Don't try to speak in meter cos nobody does
Don't pretend you're a romantic; you just want to be fucked
I keep a little stutter; it's the only thing I trust
I refuse to be understood

My mother had
A surgery
It's a child, again

Good for your
Telepathy
Know where everything is

I need a new rebellion; this one's losing its edge
Tell me how to be bad

I don't believe in science or the afterlife
I won't bother with you, I like everything you like
You've been working in the garden, now you're reeking of thyme
Everything wrinkled


In the light

Temple

My body is not my temple
My body is a lot of spit and stone and skin
Made to look valuable

Your god is not my temple
Your god is a lot of fear and freaks and fucks
Made to look holy

My word is my temple
My word is the word that says,
"NO."
"YEAH."
"SHIT."

My word is the word that says your little book and your business cards and your shined shoes standing on the street corner selling scripture to schoolchildren is bogus.

But climb up on your little soapbox altar and tell me to go to the hell I've yet to be shown on a map.



Alright.

Damn me.
I don't subscribe to your organ-playing, wafer-eating, wine-drinking, fear-mongering, stained glass, senior citizen, completely celibate but still fucking the altar boy bullshit.

So come on, white boy, PREACH.

Pray for my soul, but my soul's right here. And it's looking at you and your kids and your Sunday clothes, and your amen hallelujah and it's saying "That right there is something worth saving." But you decided to save me first, man.

I'm up for a saving.

Or would be if your idea of saving wasn't telling me to fear god, stand up straight, sing, sit, stand, sit, give me money because I need it to build another one of these!

You preach a culture of fear.
But mister,
Fate loves the fearless.

I read that on a fortune cookie, which is as good a religion as any other. It even comes with a dozen fried dumplings and some white rice.

Your god told you to spread his word. You call that divine, I call that good marketing.


Mister, I find your misguided idolatry dangerous, ignorant, and hilarious.

I won't come into your temple and tell you to go to hell.
I won't give you a business card, I'll give you a dollar.
I'll give you a dollar and a handshake and a goodbye.
Because, Mister, you're about to leave
You're about to walk out of that door and get in your SUV and drive home to your suburban development and turn on your FOX NEWS and climb into bed next to your emptiness and fall asleep with your Bible open.


Mister, GET OUT OF MY TEMPLE.

Stone Soup Peace

I have given
Beds to soldiers
But under their tanks I still sleep

Motionless, they
Have us gather
Ingredients for stone soup peace

Aching in the fields
We harvest
Ornaments or Christmas wreaths

We fall away
From our religion
But these presents we will keep

Shivering
In slavic slumber
Waiting for the other shoe

Bumping
On the subway
You're a stranger, I'm strange too

I get used
To my surroundings
I locate the neighborhood

I grew up in
Bakeries
Crumb-faced, looking rather good

World History

D. (Slept in shifts) In the
Apartment -- family, friends

The farmland (open area) has
Been filled with streets &
Buildings

Touch

You
Put my head on your lap
Kept on rubbing my back
I sighed
It is so nice on the outside
I thanked your god for the plough lines
And their growing seeds

But
It was ruined and rained
The bridge was creaking with strain
I sleep
In your van in the back seat
Kept on feeling the black heat
Against my eyelids

Too
You were baking for days
It is nothing I say
I know
I am quiet and not old
I am ugly but got soul
Worth enjoying

Good
Kept my feet in the sand
Kept on touching your hands
I was
Just as happy as a bug
Felt like touching to be touched
On our island

True
When the sand turned to grass
We were measuring mass
Of the
Bones and skins and the rubber
Gorgeous things in each other
We kept our eyes on

This
We were saying at last
We were skinny and fast
The hill
Picnic-eating all our fill
Summer-living it until
The season's over

Grab
All your songs and your bliss
Your dust and your instruments
Meet us
And the only true creatures
Know us all by our features
Tattoos and scars

At
Where the man makes his bend
All his limbs and his ends
Are so
Great for living in the world
Good for kissing on a girl
And hearing thunder

Hot Damn

You are not trying
A glorious siren
Made a necklace out of metal
We found on the ground

Inside you shouted
"You will all crumble"
But I am intact and
I still don't know how

Laying the groundwork
For so many houses
I'll have a new neighbor
But where is my home?

Losing some feeling
I want to be touched but
I listen to Graceland
And worry alone

Hot damn
Hot damn

I'd love to be back in
The womb for a little
I don't like that outside
I can't feel my limbs

Fitting back into
Your childhood clothing
Digging through pockets
And loving your lint

A weekend near Easter
We get ourselves tangled
And use our two bodies
The way we know how

Pack all your bags and
Quick fake our deaths so
We can live without reason
Escape to the South

Hot damn
Hot damn

A veteran once asked me,
"Would you die for your country?"
I cleared all my throat out
And smiled at him

I can't say I would though
My country is nothing
I don't need its furnace
Heat myself from within

I printed some money
And spent it on pizza
No way I'll live hungry
I spit on my gold

They teach us to read and
They send us to college
But I need an idea
Before I get old

Knifethrowing

Got a claustrophobia
Got color TV
Got refrigeration
Got pain in my knees
I got two more people looking out for me
One is my mother
One is my beast
I'm not free
I'm not free

Feeling our wires
Fry out natural
Feeling our limbs
We lost in the war
I've got hallucinations I'm looking for
I'm still hungry
Hunting is a chore

Grabbing our muscles
And watching us die
A crowd of spectators
All throwing their knives
Everyone's laughing who would usually sigh
This is a painting, this is a life
Nearly mine

Loved ones gather
At our funeral jet
Killing the tarmac
With alcohol sweat
I've got a great old banjo I would usually fret
But it doesn't seem appropriate now

Down in the season
We lay by the lake
Loving our movement
Feeling the quake
It's far too long since we were really awake
Your company's fine
But I want something to take

Engines and Engineers

Attribute flaws to side effects of human being
A policy that borders on excuse
Every morning I just seem to wake up wheezing
I'm a radical gone static with the flu

A double head, an open neck: Listen, my lips are
Open but not quite ready for use
When I'm on a game board I know what I'm doing
A ladder's work and I prefer the chutes

I called up your celebrity telethons
To tell them that I admire their work
I was told that I could be American
If I just learned to put that gossip first

Trying notes on my piano, I am stupid
To not have learned this when I still could learn
Sighing as I get to bed, "Is it not fruitless?"
Strap blinders on so I won't dream a turn

I crane my neck to see where all my enemies are
It's a storyline I'm trying not to feel
Lift a bus, run with trains, jump really far
What a difficult time to be a superhero

I guess you've guessed that I just want to have some children
But I want to make everything else first
I think you'll like the type of engine I am building
It's one that only runs in the reverse

Do some travel with you; make it hard to find us
I'd come home to you smiling in our hut
You will keep on kissing me until you find a
Better way to really shut me up

Overbite

I put up a fight
I fix my overbite
I turn out all the lights
In your home

And in my kitchenette
I check my internet
A Catholic repent
This time alone

I feel it in my knees
At the heights I breathe
The tobacco leaves
Throw them towards the wild

I want a body fire
I want a whole church choir
I want another liar
No I don't

Pour

I love you when you pour
Everything that's in you and more
All the faces you only once wore
Down onto the floor

And it sits there and it looks like a stain
And it slowly circles around the drain
And it'll fade into the sidewalk with rain
You say there will never be shame

In doing that kind of shit
In gagging, in choking on it
In readying your mouth to spit
Then taking another hit

Blurry Splotches Of Light

There are times I feel more like the old than the young
I've spent days in my room just putting teeth in my tongue
My mouth is a hole and my pockets are lint
Don't ask me for dinner, my money's all spent
I can give it all up, I can take what I get
Because everyone knows the way

The way to sell yourself into the system is just
An admission of guilt:
I'm a human, I lust
After freedom
Dear god and dear government,
Save me from myself

I've caught myself thinking these last couple days
About the way I was built versus the way I was raised
I'm sticking hair in my face as an excuse to shave
Cos that's all I ever want

I'm reading your books and I'm putting some notes
Into margins I just feel these words in my throat
I'll announce a flood and I'll build them a boat
And I'll sink it in the middle of the sea

I'd love to sit beside you on our way through the world
And you'd know me as Boy and I'd just call you Girl
Because that is all we need in this oyster: a pearl
A name we do not have

The way to name your kids after flowers is fine
An American theme
Oh sweet orchards of mine
I'm eating all your apples til I know it's the time
To burn you to the ground

They've made me a cynic, they've filled me with dirt
But I dust myself off, and I take off my shirt
And no I'm not sure about how all of this works
But I'm willing to learn

In the back seat of a car that reeks of fake pine
I've opened my hand and you're counting the lines
Instead of a diamond I'll just dig you a mine
That's what what you're taught to want

And the only world they know has been filtered through tubes
They live on the couch, and they sleep through the news
And the only drive they take is straight through, for their food
Cross themselves before they eat

I take off my glasses and I find I can see
The blurry splotches of light are the true parts to me
I'd give my whole body if I thought I could be
Anything at all

Prizefighter

I talked with you the night through
And god you were a typewriter
I feel like I'm just like you
Another failure prizefighter

They'll make movies about us
A generation typecast
So we'll watch them and reminisce

About words we left unspoken
Rotting right inside our mouths
Arms and legs unbroken
Days went by, sat on our couch

You talk about your city
You talk about your modern art
And god you are so pretty
Another way to fall apart

I can't picture us fighting
I see the ground but it's just dirt
I see you are like lightning
I see you are like fireworks

House fire in my body
I am too sick to be alone
The way you look beside me
Is comfort like a dial tone

They say it's cos we're young but
We really think that something's wrong
We hang our flags upside down

I Thought I Might Skip Town But Maybe You'd Mind

It's a shoot-out
At the break of dawn
It's a dumb mouth
That I'm kissing on

Do you feel that
Under your skin?
That's the state that
I've been living in

That's a car crash
That's a house fire
That's a mustache
That's an evening's work

I thought I might I skip town but maybe you'd mind
I said "I'm skipping town." You said "God that's so fine."

In your mirror
In your caviar
My reflection
My face in the wall

On your way home
On your bread lines
On your cell phone
Unintelligent design

On your desktop
With your alphabet
Try to make me
But you always forget

I'm a real mess
I've got nothing but sound
That's a life vest
But I think I'll just drown

Did I write this?
Are we playing a part?
Read the stage notes
Are we fucking it up?

And if I just missed my cue I think that's alright
And if I really have to be with you I guess I won't die

Washing it off our hands
Fucking the government too

It's a protest
It's an act of war
It's some tear gas
It's another chore

Another

Wear your hair like it falls from your head
The revolution comes I'm making my bed
So fall with me

Come over, maybe waste your time
Come over, we'll fall asleep all night
Just waste with me

Am I just another tragic case?
I look at you and I cannot see your face
I just see myself
(Falling all in love.)