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Austin Psych Fest review: Crystal Stilts
When asked last week what counted as psychedelic music, Alex Maas of the Black Angels said that the category was ridiculously broad and that almost anything, including old ladies playing the banjo, was psychedelic if the listener judged it as such.
This year’s Psych Fest lineup puts that philosophy into practice, with Friday night purveyors of Brooklyn-based post-punk Crystal Stilts offering not one but several definitions of the genre, ranging from their version of traditional late ’60s style psych to darker, more contemporary fare. Whether lead singer Brad Hargett and the rest of the band like it or not, his detached, brooding vocals layered atop punchy rhythms do sound as though they borrow a bit from Joy Division. They can hardly be considered a knockoff, though, with all of the other sounds the band throws at its listeners. On “Invisible City” from the band’s 2011 release “In Love With Oblivion,” keyboardist Kyle Forester’s twisted surf rock organ added an extra layer of creepy behind Hargett’s already disturbing chorus: “we know what happened at death, but I don’t have to say why.”
On stage, Forester played the animated foil to the reserved Hargett, who stuck close to the mic stand. Elsewhere guitarist JB Townsend and bassist Andy Adler focus on their instruments and drummer Keegan Cooke. The three plotted gunshot intros, exploding into blazing, guitar-forward rock numbers that lit up the cavernous interior of the Seaholm Power Plant. At other points, they toned it down a bit, leaning more toward jangly garage pop, guitars and keys in delightfully messy conversation, but the energy remained. By the end of the set, that momentum boiled over into a wall of noise on “Prometheus at Large;” chaos lives at the heart of their psych.
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