It's no surprise Crystal Stilts audiences tend to come from one generation above their own.

The sounds the New York-based five-piece make could have been done in the early 1980s by any number of shoegazing noise-pop bands.

It’s probably because frontman JB has spent the past seven years fielding questions on the subject, but he is refreshingly honest about the group’s influences.

“All music has a level of innovation but on first listening with a new band people tend to pick it apart.

“That’s fine, I expect people to do that. More often than not the stuff they think we’re referencing is decent.

“It’s a compliment if we get identified as a band that sounds [like they are] from 1982, because I feel music was better back then.”

The most obvious comparisons are Jesus And The Mary Chain, My Bloody Valentine and anything C86-era. The Fall and American indie staples such as The Dandy Warhols are in there too. And singer Brad Hargett has something of the Jim Morrison in his vocals.

It’s often said the best songwriters are those with the biggest record collections. But JB says his now meagre record collection – “I sold most of it, probably to pay for drugs” – is mainly filled with obscure British bands such as October Love Song by Chris & Cosey (once of Throbbing Gristle) and Happy Refugees, a London DIY post-punk band from 1984.

“As you go back, there is more and more innocence in terms of sound and people not just making records for money,” he says.

“There are always going to be money records, but there was less marketing then. The industry has changed for the worse.”

He likes records that stand up 20 years after they were made.

Because of its classic references, JB says Crystal Stilts’s new record, In Love With Oblivion, will have the same fate.

British label Fortuna POP! – home to The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart, another New York nu-gaze band soon to launch their second album – release Crystal Stilts’s sophomore effort on April 11. The label must be hoping they can make good the C86 revival that threatened to arrive in 2009.

Like those original noise-pop bands, JB says both Crystal Stilts and The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart make records to be played live.

“I tried not to go too crazy when we recorded in New York so we could reproduce it live.

“I did it that way because I don’t like going to see bands live, only to be disappointed. I hate it when you go and there are parts you like on the record that aren’t there.”

That simplicity, recording the drums, bass, keyboards and a guide guitar live, then layering over vocals and a few extra guitar lines, makes In Love With Oblivion instant and easy to get on with quickly.

“That just came out. I went for some sonic references with the intro. We opened the back of a piano and recorded a track of strumming along the stings, then ran the tape backwards, so it has a Rolling Stones Satanic Majesties kind of thing going on.

“There are subtle familiarities to other records which are not deliberate, but I wanted to touch on The Fall rhythmically with the drums on Invisible City, which also has a Pink Floyd-style chord progression. The songs are like little hybrids.”

There is nothing conceptual in the songwriting, however. Through The Floor is upbeat – almost 1970s – with hand claps, a soul vibe and sounds made for indie discos.

Sycamore Tree and Half A Moon are somewhere between The Doors and Joy Division. Half A Moon is pop, Alien Rivers is stoned and slow.

“It represents everything I listen to,” says JB. “It’s the best of the past four years of Crystal Stilts.”

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