Crystal Stilts
Soundcontrol, Manchester
24/06/2011

Peter Dinklage’s skinny beanpole brother is switching between space noises and swoopy organ sounds a la Dave Rowberry or Ray Manzarek. A man with a medieval tonsure of hair is wresting the sort of angular guitar lines The Fall last traded in circa ‘Fall Heads Roll’. Commanding attention centre stage, Englebert Humperdinck is doing an impression of Liam Gallagher, swaggering back and forth, lifting his microphone gently up and down, as he intones in the style of Ian Curtis. Stage left, a guy with Fred ‘Sonic’ Smith hair arcs and cranes over his guitar as if he’s trying to catch a fish.  Obscured behind all of the theatrics, the drummer, a sweaty Ralph Little type, binds all of the disparate elements of the Crystal Stilts – for it is they – together in a ball of furious Nuggets-style action.

We find ourselves in Soundcontrol in Manchester, upstairs from an end of term party that has, according to keyboard player Kyle Forrester, “filled the toilets with vomit” – and Crystal Stilts are playing the last night of a tour in support of their latest album, ‘In Love with Oblivion’, with gusto. For the uninitiated, Crystal Stilts sound like all the best parts of your dad’s record collection – The Seeds, The Sonics, Love – by way of early Verve (frontman and band co-founder Brad Hargett has a look of ‘mad’ Richard Ashcroft as he stares out over the heads of his audience). The only criticism you could really level at them at this point is that they feel young: Crystal Stilts seem afraid to let some of their songs breathe, bringing things to an abrupt halt just as you hope they’ll wig out for the next twenty minutes. But it’s a minor point. If your idea of a good time is dirty throwback rock’n’roll, Crystal Stilts are a band to watch out for.

Peter Wild