It may sound like it has been recorded in an underground chamber, but the love of oblivion is captured in the markedly less oblique lyrics, with many references to the sun, moon and stars. While its subject matter is all-embracing and universal, this is also a more penetrable and focused sound for the band, and also connects on a personal level.
If there’s a weak point here, it’s the vocals. But somehow Brad Hargett’s deadpan drone, forever drenched in reverb and sometimes digging up the tired ghost of Ian Curtis, works perfectly against the jangly, jagged music – anything more elaborate would take away from the tight, intense instrumentation.
The swampy, ghoulish trek of Alien Rivers manages to be hazy and distant through most of its seven minutes, but by the end it has you by the lapels and as it stares you off for its lurching coda. There’s a creepy atmosphere created here, but the rest of the album stands out above this psychedelic dirge, due to it unashamedly clouting you with its pop smarts. The album achieves a consistently high quality, though it’s hard to beat the melodic lo-fi charm of Through The Floor, which recalls The Magnetic Fields’ When My Boy Walks Down The Street.
I’m getting to the stage where I’ve had my fill of Flying Nun-sounding bands and Crystal Stilts do indeed pay tribute to the Dunedin sound in various songs: Setting Sun is a pop stormer in the style of The Bats; Half A Moon is a Hammond-thumping head-rush a la The Clean. But they do more than capture the sound of this era, they capture the soul of it, and somehow still manage to cement their own sound more clearly with this recording.
Indeed, you’re reminded of several bands while listening to Crystal Stilts, from The Doors to Jesus & Mary Chain – let’s face it, they’re not the most original band in the world. But what they lack in originality (a trait that’s hard to come by these days anyway), they make up for on all other counts. This is a dark, mesmerizing dive through the downward spiral.
