Love Is All, Crystal Stilts at the Horseshoe
For all the hype Crystal Stilts has received, I was still much more interested in the headliner last Sunday. Allan and I had been set to ride this show in style, with free passes and all; except when we got there we were treated to a glaring frontdoorwoman, her evident distaste in our attempts at free entry, her insistence, “no, you’re not on the list,” before experiencing the heavy silence of a long-distance contact who never picked up his phone. Screw this, we decided eventually, and paid the thirteen bucks each.
There were some notable mentionables, of course, concerning the rough-and-mumble, Holy Grail reverb-heavy, Pitchfork-vogue sound of Brooklyn’s Crystal Stilts: the decidedly deadpan American attitude of the frontman, whose hair fell precisely over his eyes, and their drummer who had recently departed from the equally trendy Vivian Girls, to start. And in fact, I liked the first few songs, thought Brad Hargett’s voice was buried in the mix just right. Thought the third number was okay too but sounded like something I had already heard. After the fifth, however, I had to admit, goddammit: every song sounded exactly the same to me. Was I deaf, or daft or something?
Frankie Rose left her tambourine taped to the drum during the entire set, and its timbre grew increasingly annoying after a while, falling out of time in parts. I looked around at the people moving with as much intensity as can be expected from Toronto indie audiences, which is not that much, frankly. (The rents are too high in this city; thusly, obviously, people can’t afford enough alcohol at shows and are not in as good a mood as they could be.) Nursing my beer, I wondered: what is the big deal with this band anyway, and waited for Love is All.
I had first heard about Love is All sometime after the release of their debut album Nine Times That Same Song, at a time when I was experiencing a deep affection for certain varieties of European music. I had befriended a cute Swedish girl while traveling in North Africa, who had introduced me to The Knife and Jens Lekman, and anything Scandinavian was a go. The intensity was the first thing I noticed about the act. Lead singer Josephine Olausson has a voice few can match; she can croon, she can yell, communicating the ambiguity of her lyrics, pitting levity against their gravity, with superb style. Markus Gorsh, the drummer, is a rhythmical machine, never missing a beat, while reading the others in the band perfectly, always. The guitarist Nicholaus Sparding’s angular style truly embodies the art-punk/indie rock monikers the band occupies, while Fredrik Eriksson’s saxophone adds a density to the sound which defies explanation.
Though their set barely cleared the forty minute mark, the band pumped out not-quite mega hits like “Wishing Well,” and “Felt Tip” (a fantastic track to save for the encore), and added a surprising and spirited rendition of Flock of Seagulls’ “I ran,” at which I nearly freaked out, turned to Allan, pumped my fists, and yelled, “Flock of Seagulls, man! Fuck!”
Love is All – Talk Talk Talk Talk
Tags: concert