I Love You in Other Cities is an apt name for a retrospective of a Detroit band whose swirling sound was more in keeping with what was happening in early '90s Manchester and London than the Motor City. While Majesty Crush's sound wasn't a dead ringer for the other music emanating from Detroit at the time, it wasn't a carbon copy of British shoegaze, either: opting for droning guitars and muscular rhythms rather than a plethora of ethereal effects, the band's music had almost as much in common with the churning attack of ...
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I Love You in Other Cities is an apt name for a retrospective of a Detroit band whose swirling sound was more in keeping with what was happening in early '90s Manchester and London than the Motor City. While Majesty Crush's sound wasn't a dead ringer for the other music emanating from Detroit at the time, it wasn't a carbon copy of British shoegaze, either: opting for droning guitars and muscular rhythms rather than a plethora of ethereal effects, the band's music had almost as much in common with the churning attack of fellow Midwesterners Smashing Pumpkins during the Gish era as it did with My Bloody Valentine or Chapterhouse. I Love You in Other Cities, which gathers tracks from Majesty Crush's lone album, Love 15, and their numerous EPs, also shows how much range they had within their sound. "Sunny Pie," from Fan, the band's debut EP, is as breathy and hypnotic as any dream pop from across the pond in 1992 was; "If JFA Were Still Together" from their 1995 swan song, Sans Muscles, reveals a more aggressive approach and funkier rhythms that nod to Spiritualized, Jane's Addiction, and the group's Motor City rock heritage. Sex, drugs, and rock & roll also featured more prominently -- or at least more literally -- in Majesty Crush's songs than in the usually abstract lyrics of other shoegaze and dream pop bands: "Horse" deals with heroin, "Penny for Love" with prostitution, and "Uma" sings the praises of Uma Thurman's "dirty blonde hair" and "eyes that stare" with fetishistic devotion. At times, the band's lyrical obsessions and singer David Stroughter's cooing vocals (complete with a faux-British accent that comes and goes) distract from the distinctive balance of dream pop and rock in the rest of their music; at their best ("No. 1 Fan," "Grow," "Brand"), they prove that shoegaze didn't have to be British to be good. And while Majesty Crush weren't quite as ethereal nor as epic as shoegaze's leading lights, they compare favorably with some of the revivalists that followed them. I Love You in Other Cities is a good retrospective of a band that just may have been in the wrong place at the wrong time. ~ Heather Phares, Rovi
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