Thank the digital age for Crystal Castles—and the cartoon She-Ra, for whose home the Toronto-based electronic duo is named. They've beeped, tweaked, and leaked their way into sizable underground popularity. But until now, they haven't had a full-length album on which to hang their success. Their debut LP comes out Tuesday.

Their bytes-to-bits story goes like this: A few early tracks, posted online for friends to download, found their way to labels and an eventual contract with Last Gang Records. How about that! Adding to their press-friendly back story is the persistent rumor that they were an accident, an unplanned conception at a casual jam session. They deny that. Another maybe-accident: Their self-titled debut was leaked onto file-sharing networks earlier this month, stoking the demand. And of course there's the unmistakable Crystal Castles sound, which falls somewhere between Simian Mobile Disco and an 8-bit Super Nintendo soundtrack, achieved by instrumentalist Ethan Kath who wiries Atari sound chips into synthesizer keyboards, among other DIY innovations.

Crystal Castles' other half, Alice Glass, spouts vocals that range wildly between the bouncy, danceable chants on "Courtship Dating" to the ear-splitting cacophony that is "Alice Practice." The contrast extends to the album as a whole, and will tempt any binary-minded listener to separate the songs like ones and zeros into two distinct camps: gentler, more palatable dance numbers like "Untrust Us," "Good Time," and "1991" on one hand; and violent, disorienting freak-outs like "xxzxcuzx me" and "Love and Caring" on the other. The rough stuff borders on being listener-unfriendly but helps to tease out the aggressive undertones in its slower, more measured counterparts. Ultimately, both sides reach a stylistic détente, falling into the well-crafted Super Mario-style, Sturm und Drang rhythm that marks Crystal Castles as one of the most pulse-hiking electronic albums in recent memory.