The Crystal Method's Ken Jordan and Scott Kirkland helped re-establish America's place on the dance music map with the acclaimed 1994 City of Angels single "Now Is the Time," which married samples and sound bites with pulsing breakbeats and electronically generated hooks. After several singles, Vegas, their first full alblum, was released in August of 1997.
� Song Listing Plugin Download
1. Trip Like I Do
2. Busy Child
3. Cherry Twist � �
4. High Roller � �
5. Comin' Back
6. Keep Hope Alive � �
7. Vapor Trail � �
8. She's My Pusher � �
9. Jaded � �
10. Bad Stone


More Crystal Method:
The Official Crystal Method Website
Buy Crystal Method: Vegas at CDnow
Crystal Method Lyrics at ILS

Crystal Method is featured on these alblums:
Spawn Soundtrack




Inside CD Booklet


Song Listing From CD Booklet


Back of CD Booklet


Inside of Jewel Case


Back of Jewel Case
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One downside of the hoopla surrounding electronica is the decidedly Eurocentric slant in the mainstream media coverage; despite a legion of native innovators, American judges keep awarding the laurels to Brits and Germans. Since 1994's "Now Is the Time," the Los Angeles team Crystal Method -- Ken Jordan and Scott Kirkland -- has been unleashing exceptional home-grown beats. Now, with a major-label deal and a music biz that's finally gotten over its "disco sucks" sour grapes, the duo is poised as the United States' Great White Hope in the techno sweepstakes with its first full-length outing.

"Vegas" (named after Jordan and Kirkland's hometown) includes the club hits "Busy Child," which bustles with three-snaps exhortations to "get busy, child," and the anthemic "Keep Hope Alive," a celebration of the glory days of the Los Angeles rave scene. But the duo also loves to rock. Much like the music of their U.K. peers the Chemical Brothers (who made "Keep Hope Alive" a staple of their DJ sets), the Crystal Method aren't averse to occasionally fusing good old-fashioned guitar licks to their dense mix of funky breaks, distorted beats and escalating keyboard swells.

The album kicks off with "Trip Like I Do," a slow burner that shows off the Method's stylistic versatility. Kirkland and Jordan understand how to construct cuts with the peaks and valleys necessary to keep the dance floor in motion, but they pack them with enough melodic hooks, plus engaging samples and timbres, to withstand repeated listens. Even at their most propulsive, the Crystal Method create dance music that on closer inspection actually improves; the moody "High Roller," peppered with NASA prattle and sealed with a blissful ambient coda, proves especially seductive. The lackluster "Comin' Back" and "Jaded" aside, Vegas makes an exemplary debut. Buy American. (RS 768)

 Copyright � 1968-1998 Rolling Stone Network. All Rights Reserved.
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The electronic dance artists breaking big in the American mainstream mostly carry U.K. passports, but the Crystal Method is set to ensure that U.S. artists also get recognition during the rise of the burgeoning culture. The Los Angeles duo began their partnership as DJs in a Las Vegas strip club before unleashing "Now Is The Time," the breakbeat driving, monster that began the buzz. The group has often been labeled "the American Chemical Brothers" (they opened for the Brothers back in `95), and the release of "There Is Hope," which boasts a vocal sample of Jesse Jackson as its centerpiece, made the pair an underground sensation. Owing more to Led Zeppelin and Stevie Wonder than to the Aphex Twin or Orbital, the Crystal Method constructs tweaked-out, electro-breakbeat floorfillers with a rock `n roll mentality, adding more recognizable song-structure and melody to its synthesized attack. Watch for its debut release Vegas (Outpost), which hits shelves this month.

M. TYE COMER

� 1978-1998 College Media, Inc. All rights reserved.
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When the industry stamped electronic dance music "the next big thing," altenative radio was hit with a small, yet potent, wash of singles by techno's first wave of breaking artists. This onslaught consisted of well-established units such as the Orb, Daft Punk, Prodigy and Chemical Brothers, whose massive U.K. successes helped make their transitions into the American market a little easier. An interesting aspect of the Crystal Method's Vegas is that in many ways it marks the crashing of techno's second mainstream wave, representing a cast of artists (many of them American) who may find themselves heard by a slightly more knowledgeable listening public. To many, the Crystal Method will be to Chemical Brothers what Bush was to Nirvana: Although the two groups developed around the same time, it's clear this L.A.-by-way-of-Las Vegas duo is destined to walk in the Brothers' large shadow for some time. That's unfortunate, because Vegas is a truly enjoyable, remarkably catchy record that, in many ways, proves more consistent than that of its U.K. counterpart. Led by revamped versions of "Busy Child," "Keep Hope Alive" and "Trip Like I Do" (that's the un-Filtered version; see Spawn for Filter's addition), the Method picks up the pace with fistfuls of fierce breakbeats and slamming acid loops that never lose their potency or appeal. Vegas is a stunning debut from an outfit that will soon prove itself an innovator in its own right.

M. TYL COMER

 � 1978-1998 College Media, Inc. All rights reserved.
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