Crystal Stilts : In Love With Oblivion

<img src="http://www.qromag.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/crystalstiltsinlovewith.jpg" alt="Crystal Stilts : In Love With Oblivion" />Whereas Crystal Stilts' fifties fuzz, Velvet Underground-loving sound once felt fresh, it now feels stale on <i>In Love With...
Crystal Stilts : In Love With Oblivion
5.9 Slumberland
2011 

Crystal Stilts : In Love With Oblivion

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A few years ago, Brooklyn’s garage-rock revival was the hottest thing in the indie-world – and there was perhaps no hotter act than Crystal Stilts.  Alongside sibling cousins Vivian Girls (they both poached – and then lost – drummer/now singer/guitarist Frankie Rose – QRO photos), Crystal Stilts were the ‘next big thing’, leaning to the airy side of garage-fuzz as surely as the ladies Vivian leaned to the party side.  But since then, the Girls have been repeating themselves to less (QRO album review) and less (QRO album review) effect – and unfortunately the same holds true for Crystal Stilts.  Whereas the band’s fifties-fuzz, Velvet Underground-loving sound once felt fresh, it now feels stale on In Love With Oblivion.

To be fair, Love sounds a lot like prior record Alight of the Night (QRO review) – but that really only proves that Alight was an overrated album, praised for neo-originality (i.e., bringing back a sound no one had brought back in a long time) rather than for timelessness, and it doesn’t hold up nearly as well today.  Rather, it’s a nice slice of lo-fi garage, neither too sweet nor too party, but not too substantial, either.  And that is still the case for Oblivion, only with even less substance, and the disappointment at realizing the emperor of Brooklyn-garage is rather underdressed.

Note that this doesn’t hold true for Love opener “Sycamore”, the clear standout on the record, thanks to its road-garage trot and catch.  But the rest of Oblivion is largely nice-but-forgettable road-garage-love, without the hooks of “Sycamore” or the press of darker road-garage (and the main exception, other than “Sycamore”, is “Alien Rivers”, which seems almost a mock-dark piece, as singer Brad Hargett’s vocals feel like the narrator from Rocky Horror Picture Show, and the organ-keys are just as cheesy, but apparently the piece is meant to be treated seriously?…).

By the final clutch of songs, Crystal Stilts’ lo-fi feels… well, cheap.  ‘Cheap’ as in ‘inexpensive’, like they’re trying to pass off using cheap/inexpensive instruments and equipment as a ‘style’, but haven’t done anything special or interesting enough with the low-cost gear to create any ‘style’.  It grows tiresome on what is still a more-enjoyable-than-not record.

When bands like the Crystal Stilts and Vivian Girls were first coming up on the scene, those who weren’t ‘in the know’ were often dismissive of them for not being anything remarkable.  But, whether through persona, personality, persistence, perseverance, or just groupthink hype, Brooklyn’s garage scene grew in acclaim and accomplishments.  Unfortunately, it now seems to be on the back end of a slow flash-in-the-pan.

MP3 Stream: “Sycamore Tree”

{audio}mp3/files/Crystal Stilts – Sycamore Tree.mp3{/audio}

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