Crystal Castles have officially confirmed the release date and title of their forthcoming album.
(III) will receive a global release on November 5th and is the first of their full-lengths to be produced entirely by Ethan Kath.
New single Wrath of God will be available to stream on the band’s Soundcloud from 8pm.
Ethan Kath said: “We wanted the new album to sound like a completely different and new experience. We’d limit ourselves to one take on each song because we believe the first take is the rawest expression of an idea.”
By ditching their old synthesizers and keyboards used on I and II, Ethan enforced a “strictly no computers” rule in the studio and began recording everything directly to tape.
Together the Canadian duo has conjured up a collection of songs that are as raw as they are well rounded. As (III) unfolds, each track will take you to greater heights and equal lows, as you enter the sometimes plagued, and often polarized world that is Crystal Castles.
Alice said: “Oppression is a theme, in general… A lot of bad things have happened to people close to me since II and it’s profoundly influenced my writing as I’ve realized there will never be justice for them. I didn’t think I could lose faith in humanity any more than I already had, but after witnessing some things, it feels like the world is a dystopia where victims don’t get justice and corruption prevails.”
Recorded mostly in Warsaw and Berlin, the highly anticipated (III) also boasts the haunting and euphoric five-minute mind-bender PLAGUE, that quickly caused a cyber-storm amongst fans and media when the band unveiled it via their soundcloud page this Summer.
Since then, Ethan and Alice have been surprising fans across Europe by randomly dropping exclusive tracks from (III) into their live set, revealing yet another layer of (III) to the world.
The artwork for the forthcoming album is an award-winning photograph taken by the photo-journalist Samuel Arand and features Fatima al-Qaws cradling her son Zayed who is suffering from the effects of tear gas after participating in a street demonstration in Sanaa, Yemen.
Crystal Castles will be playing a select number of UK tour dates in November:
22/11 – Institute – Birmingham
23/11 – Norwich U.E.A. – Norwich
24/11 – O2 Academy Brixton – London
26/11 – O2 ABC – Glasgow
27/11 – O2 Academy – Leeds
28/11 – Manchester Academy – Manchester
(III) will be released worldwide on November 5th.