Crystal Stilts
Alight Of Night

New York woke up this morning blinded by a night lit by glimmers. Dazzled by resonant guitars, lush organs, and visionary sounds in its 'Prismatic Room', it dons a spectral and luminous avant-garage, dusting off that fascinating ethereal 'Factory' style overcoat and that magnificent lo-fi/new wave blend sweater (so very Pastels) that gives it such a sought-after retro air.

It's 2008 and Brooklyn is teeming with numerous underground realities that bring the grimiest, dirtiest rock back to the surface that you remember from the days of ''Venus in Furs'' and ''Femme Fatale''. It's 2008 and there, amidst all this rarefied sonic mass, savvy New York carefully shapes and delivers a heck of a half masterpiece that reeks of primitive and cavernous rock, incredibly familiar.

We're talking about 'Alight Of Night' by Crystal Stilts (Brad Hargett vocals, JB Townsend guitars, Andy Adler bass, Kyle Forrester organs, Miss Frankie Rose drums) and their murky wave that drowns in the most unstable garage, their esthetic indiepop that slaps the sunniest sixties-style surf rock with distorted riff blows.

37 minutes of dirty sounds, deafening guitars and a catacombal voice, that of Brad Hargett, seemingly borrowed from the darkest Ian Curtis ('Spiral Transit', 'Graveyard Orbit', 'Bright Night') and the most introspective Angus Andrew ('Prismatic Room', 'Departure'). 11 tracks of staggering beauty. From the rough and superb opener 'The Dazzled' to the danceable 'Crystal Stilts' and 'Sinking' that unearth those irresistibly rockabilly dark riffs of the Jesus & Mary Chain; from the sweetly '60s surfy guitars of 'Departure' to the layered psychedelic tambourines that melt, tortured, into the ghostly harmonica of 'Shattered Shine' (as-tounding!!); from the sensuous 'Verdant Gaze' and 'The City In The Sea' (all gloomy voice and beckoning guitars) to the true manifesto of the album, 'Prismatic Room': bucolic, chaotic, beautiful with that perfect interplay between hypnotic organ lines, essential and soft drums, and lush languid guitars vaporously vintage.

It's 2008 and despite everything, 'Alight Of Night' sounds eerily familiar and tremendously electrifying. It's 2008, but the organs and acid guitars say otherwise. New York turns on the stereo and smokes its alluring and visceral sound, leaving the opiate and dulled melodies of the Crystal Stilts to stagnate in its 'prismatic rooms', in the streets, down the basements, in the tree-lined parks, leaving those who hear its Doorsian and Velvettian calls like dazed and smitten sleepwalkers. It's a mournful mantra that corrodes their hearts, keeps them awake unable to sleep and rest, makes them silently scream, makes them sing softly: 'Been building my life out of distorted fragments.. this magic room, my prismatic tomb'....and the night, outside, already lights them up again.