A moderate disappointment. With Crystal Castles II, Crystal Castles showed themselves to be one of the most original synth pop groups in a long while. It was a melting pot of just generally good pop sensibilities and had uncommon influences such as witch house and electroclash music. What really made the album interesting though was its attitude. Though it was just as catchy as any good pop album, it maintained a dark and abrasive feel throughout, which was great.

On their follow-up album, I expected Crystal Castles to play on their strengths and deliver more of the “edgy” synth pop that was dotted around their second album (“Baptism,” “Celestica,” “Pap Smear,” “Suffocation”) and have less of the dated, slow, witch house inspired songs that made up the other half. Much to my dismay, they did the exact opposite and lost a lot of their originality and what made them interesting in the process.

Now, (III) can hardly be called abrasive or attention-grabbing. What it can be called though, is monotonous. The album barely changes tempo throughout and every song feels like it’s building up to an energetic release that never comes. If you’ve heard just one of the songs on here, you more or less know what everything else is going to sound like. There’s minimal variety unlike their last album, Crystal Castles II.

While (III) is a decent album, it doesn’t really ever stand out as a whole, and the same goes for its individual tracks. Too much of it sounds similar and kind of blurs together into something pleasant but mostly unrewarding. For being over two years in the making, Crystal Castles sure are treading water with this album.