Top 10 Breakout Acts of 2008, Starring Crystal Stilts

Brooklyn quartet Crystal Stilts have just fronted up with their first-ever longplayer, Alight of Night, a proudly lo-fidelity set that sets dangling guitars, splashy cymbals, and Brad Hargett's baritone moan swimming in an eerie sea of reverb. Released, last week, by indie-pop imprint Slumberland Records, it's attracting a great deal of critical acclaim and good old-fashioned internet hype-starting; turning Crystal Stilts from semi-anonymous New Yorker hipsters to, uh, not-at-all-anonymous New Yorker hipsters.

Given every year produces countless acts, like Crystal Stilts, who come from out of nowhere to suddenly be everywhere, and given that the ought-eight is starting to slip away like so many sands through some sort of hourglass, I thought it high time to tally up the breakout acts of 2008. Thus, I've collated these for you, gentle reader, in the ever-popular Top 10 format. To the ballot!

Photo © [Lauren Bilanko]