"Divided by Night" Review

"Divided by Night" by The Crystal Method, Tiny e Records

The Crystal Method’s fourth album “Divided by Night” is said to be of a darker feel than past albums. The music is of the electronic and dance genre, and will conjure up memories of techno, but at the same time, it’s not considered techno/trance (go figure?).

The songs can be quite slow and drawn out, but are extremely well calculated. Other songs are of the upbeat nature and provide a bang, bang, bang feeling. A calming effect is generated with some songs even though there’s distortion, but on the flipside, lots of chaos can be found in the backdrop.
Lyrics are solely present when the song features an artist, but the music alone can easily manipulate our imaginations, especially in songs like “Smile?”. Just when the journey is presumed to be finished, the beat picks up and we’re off again. To where? That’s up to the imagination.

“Come Back Clean” features Emily Haines (Broken Social Scene, etc) on the microphone heeding advice pertaining to, well, coming back clean from drugs. Lines like “don’t play with drugs in your bloodstream” are vital to begin the process, and Emily threatens, in a soft voice, to “hold my breath ‘til you come back clean”.

The final song, “Falling Hard” features Meiko singing about not wanting to be by herself and pleading heaven to help her now. Loneliness is a fear that seeps through our minds every once in awhile, so this has hit or miss power.

Other artists featured include the likes of Peter Hook, Justin Warfield (She Wants Revenge), and Warfield’s wife, Stefanie, and Matisyahu. The Crystal Method incorporated a variety of feature artists to sing vocals on their tracks, and these were the most pleasing to the ears. The album as a whole is exceptionally solid with its range in lyrical topics and sluggish, but also hasty music for variety.

Grade: 3.5/5