Crystal Stilts blow my freaking mind each time I see them. This being third time I’ve seen them at the Black Cat, I wondered how they could top their last performance at the Slumberland Records Anniversary.
It might be because I am a superfan, but Crystal Stilts have proven to me that they are the kind of band that like a fine wine and an even finer woman, keeps improving with age. Their pulsing stage quality continues to crystallize with each performance, and aside from being drunk before they took to the stage, I was, as their most current album suggests, In Love with Oblivion.
I headed to the show after a brilliant meal at Estadio (go there, it’s fantastic), drenched in satisfaction from a delicious meal and fully drunk just in time for the Crystal Stilts (missed the German Measles). I forgot my notebook, but luckily William had brought his and removed a signature for me to use my own mini-book. As we waited for the band to begin, we decorated the signature, made a visual poem, asked Tariq to illustrate, drank another beer.
Following Crystal Stilt’s debut Alight of Night’s (2009) catchy and infectious garage-pop masterpiece, their newest In Love with Oblivion is certainly a darker album, and so this performance seemed a bit more reigned in. But it was no less amazing than any other. They opened with “Sycamore Tree,” such a great choice. As the freakbeat bounce pulled in the audience, Brad Hargett’s deadpan Ian Curtis-esqe vocals pushed against the frenzy, a detached and natural cool that drives any lady completely bonkers.
But like the waxing crescent on the cover of In Love with Oblivion, Brad’s retreat back into the haze of fuzzy distortion in no way inhibited the energy of the crowd that bounced around on the grooves like a piece of fuzz ensnared under the diamond of a needle. What I love in general about the Crystal Stilts is the dichotomy of scuzzy warped melancholic vocals tangled with giddy bursting keyboards.
The organ-influenced ’60s psyche reminiscent of The Strawberry Alarmclock on “Shake the Shackles” was followed by JB Tounsend’s Velvet Underground-influenced guitar on “Prometheus at Large.” I work at a nonprofit, so I don’t have all the money in the world to spend, and so I don’t really see a band twice unless they are extraordinary. I can’t wait to see them again.
Setlist:
