How Could We Forget?: Crystal Stilts

I only recently realized I made an egregious error with my Top 18 of 2008 list (and the Honorable Mentions)…I somehow, someway, inexplicably left Crystal Stilts off my list. Call it a mental lapse, call it a fuck up, call it what you will. I shall now try to make amends, dear friends.

Crystal Stilts only recently (well, over the course of the past four months or so) caught my ear, but my affection for them happened pretty instantaneously. As soon as I got a little taste of their delightfully crackly surf rock-hearts-shoegaze collision I knew I wanted, nay, needed, more. As luck would have it, these New Yorkers kindly obliged, releasing the splendiferous Alight of Night LP. It’s like the Jesus & Mary Chain hanging ten on longboards, or perhaps it’s like Dick Dale in head to toe black fiddling with feedback. Either way (or neither way), it’s pretty great.

“Departure”, formerly known (on their EP) as “Converging in the Quiet”, is one of my favorites, fearlessly driven by simple, tinny drums and droll, oft-monotonous vocals. If that sounds like a backhanded compliment, it’s not. There’s an almost lackadaisical, half-handed quality to the entire album, almost like it just happened to turn out as well as it has. And hot damn, is it good. So my apologies to Crystal Stilts, for not being able to see the forest for the trees. Whoops.