Love Is a Wave

Rate It! Avg: 4.5 (68 ratings)
Sample Album
Love Is a Wave album cover
Album Information
EDITOR'S PICK

Total Tracks: 2   Total Length: 4:56

eMusic Review 0

Avatar Image
Alex Naidus

eMusic Contributor

03.17.09
Crystal Stilts, Love Is a Wave
2009 | Label: Slumberland / IODA

Brooklyn's Crystal Stilts, graduates of our very own eMusic Selects program, have created their own irresistible universe of dark, shrouded pop. Their best songs manage to sound crystalline and crisp amidst the grain silo reverb and dollar-store twang — "Love is a Wave" is a prime example. Featuring underwater-sounding toms and tambourine, a Stilts staple even this early in the game, the track truly blooms with the unfurling of the central manic, chiming guitar riff. Even normally-deadpan vocalist Brad Hargett gets almost croony here — clearly he's as carried away by the tune as we are.

Write a Review 3 Member Reviews

Please register before you review a release. Register

user avatar

2 great tracks here...

theenddecay

Haters will say they're dull and not energetic, but after awhile, these songs get in your head, and you play them over and over ad nauseum.

user avatar

great single

soundbitesnyc

with frankie now in the mix, literally, they just get better and better. by the way, emusic, i would love if you had a way to search by "singles" or "recent singles." loved the round-up but would like more. so much good stuff coming out on 7" these days, it's hard to keep up!

user avatar

maybe their best moment to date

yancey

definitely up there with "crippled croon" and "converging in the quiet."

Recommended Albums

eMusic Features

eMusic Selects
0

eMusic Selects

By eMusic Editorial Staff, eMusic Contributor

Since 2008, we've used our eMusic Selects program to spotlight our favorite unsigned bands, releasing their albums exclusively to eMusic members and giving you a first look at bands whose music and vision inspires us. We're proud to say that bands like Best Coast, High Places, Yellow Ostrich, Julianna Barwick and others are all graduates of our Selects program. We feel just as excited about the latest members of our Selects family, The Yellow Dogs.… more »

2011: Garage Rock Grows Up
0

2011: Garage Rock Grows Up

By Mike McGonigal, eMusic Contributor

Four years ago, I flew from Portland to New York to see my favorite band, New Zealand's garage-pop trio the Clean, play three shows at a glorious pit called Cake Shop. The openers were Crystal Stilts, a Brooklyn group with no records out whose moody and noisy music pushed all the right buttons. I quickly befriended the group, especially guitarist JB Townsend and his then-girlfriend Frankie Rose, whose own band Vivian Girls were soon-to-be favorites.… more »

Crystal Stilts
0

Crystal Stilts

By Leonard Pierce, eMusic Contributor

Getting bogged down in the specifics of the familiar-yet-particular sound made by Brooklyn's Crystal Stilts often leaves critics describing the trunk and tail of an elephant and concluding that it's a whale. You can hear whole record collections in their songs — the Joy Division lows of Brad Hargett's evocative vocals, the pumping highs of Kyle Forester's Dunedin Sound keyboards, the gnarly Jeffrey Lee Pierce reverberations in JB Townsend's guitar, but attempts to reduce them… more »

Label Profile: Captured Tracks
0

Label Profile: Captured Tracks

By J. Edward Keyes, Editor-in-Chief

File Under: Ragged, guitar-based indie pop; jangle-'n'-reverb forever! Flagship Acts: Beach Fossils, Wild Nothing, the Fresh & Onlys, the Girls At Dawn Based In: Brooklyn, New York When I first meet Mike Sniper, he's drinking Patron Silver at an Oyster Bar in Greenpoint, Brooklyn. From any other record executive, the scene would be typical to the point of almost seeming mundane. But Sniper is the founder of the tiny, ragged Brooklyn indie Captured Tracks, a label that prizes… more »