Ekko Astral – pink balloons | Album Review

Topshelf Records 

As a trans woman, I spent the first 24 years of my life walking through a security line, checking for deviances from the norm in my performance of masculinity. When you spend every day questioning whether you fit in, you mistrust whether you know who you are. I had not heard a record capture these feelings more concretely until pink balloons by Ekko Astral. Throughout the album’s 36-minute runtime, frontwoman Jael Holzman lays out the issues trans people are forced to grapple with over a wall of noisy post-punk.

Ekko Astral hails from our nation's capital and has formed a nice little cult on the strength of their first excellent EP, QUARTZ, and a stellar live show, which, after I saw it once, drove me to travel to DC just to see again. QUARTZ was an incredible first document, full of moments that inspire desperate sing-alongs, like the brilliant kiss-off to the male gaze, “EAT OFF MY CHEST (WHILE I STARE AT THE CAMERA),” or tracks like “1000 DEGREES” that contrasts the ferocity with an ethereal dream of a blissfully content life.

But pink balloons takes everything magnificent about QUARTZ and allows the band to stretch out their sound and mutate. Where there was once space in the mix of “YXI,” newer songs like “head empty blues” immediately present a more claustrophobic sound, filling the mix in with two additional guitars. Holzman’s lyrics on “THE MIRROR IS A MONSTER” were already semi-surrealist, but now it feels like they have been infested with Twitter brainworms when she sings, “my brain’s bust like / molly shannon / just shoot me out a cannon / and as I hit / open my head / can you see it? / nothing’s there!” 

I love the ways Holzman hysterically details the experience of endless dates on “uwu type beat” with lines like “baskets of fries / empty suit guys” and “he skipped just one of her episodes / and now he’s completely lost the plot / he’s going gone.” One track later, “on brand” finds her desperate for love when she sings, “she’s lefty loosey / but the right guy could / make her swing right tho.” The whole record is full of brilliant lines that I have wanted to steal and tweet myself ever since I first pressed play, like the cry against consumerism, “spending all my money on a mass hysteria,” or the crazy rhyme of “you’re running thru the aisles / drinking taco bell mild / credence clearwater revival / just another two-week trial.” 

The humor and linguistic creativity in Holzman’s lyrics make the moments of directness feel even more impactful. We see these dynamics at play most distinctly on “devorah” with how the Taco Bell couplet immediately follows Holzman excoriating Congress people for compartmentalizing issues into simple acronyms on the lines “I’ve got solidarity with all the missing murdered people! / I’ve got solidarity! / Do you solidarity?” She expands the acronym used on the hill for Missing or Murdered Indigenous People to remind us that these issues aren’t just talking points. Holzman’s plea of “nothing’s funny anymore” on the coda of “sticks and stones” reminds me of fellow DC punk Ian Mackaye’s call of “irony is the refuge of the educated” on “Facet Squared.” We have to engage in the issues of our time instead of avoiding them with artifice.

The most impactful moment of the record for me rests in the chorus of lead single “baethoven.” Holzman’s cries of “the pain of being myself” are layered one on top of each other to the point of being nearly incoherent as the rhythm section hammers an icepick through your eye socket. The loudest critic of my transition has always been the dysphoric thoughts that rush into my head when I look at myself in the mirror and notice all the things, like my brow ridge or beard shadow, that make my brain deny my femininity. That is “the pain of being myself,” and it is fucking overwhelming. 

My favorite moment comes with the gentle, guitar-only ballad “make me young.” Bassist Guinevere Tully takes lead vocals for this track, delivering the line “all those things I thought I was / got muddled with what I’ve become,” which captures the dual reality of transness: being happy with existing truly while perpetually yearning for more. When Tully sings, “Yeah I know these thoughts / shouldn’t drive me insane / but they do / oh it does,” I’m reminded of how it feels to agonize over the fact that I didn’t start transitioning earlier. How hearing Transgender Dysphoria Blues didn’t make everything click for me. “make me young” may be the easiest track to digest aesthetically, but that’s only there to lull you into a false sense of security. This song will break you. 

“make me young” is meant to destabilize you in terms of sequencing as well, as its jangly guitars immediately follow the haunting, skeletal beat of “somewhere at the bottom of the river between l’enfant and eastern market.” The echo of “I can see you shifting in your seat” that opens the record finds its source here in a spoken word passage about how cis people shy away from facing the realities we trans people experience. They want to ignore the fact that “lots of us don’t make it home.” The impact of politics is material in our lives, and we need cis people to understand the fact that “if you walk through a cemetery / you’ll pass people buried under gravestones of strangers.” To sit uncomfortably and do nothing is complicity. Or, as Holzman says, “I have friends still hiding while you throw a parade.” 

The most euphoric moment on this record comes at the very end. Closing track “i90” starts with three minutes of simmering, tension-building solo guitar that calls to mind how IDLES ended their first record with a lament. In the second verse, Holzman is joined, for the first time all record, in solidarity by another voice, Josaleigh Pollett’s. When the tension finally gets to be too much, the rest of the band syncs up with Holzman and Pollett belting out a repeated plea of “low rider / hang em higher / keep the rhythm.” After a record detailing the trials and tribulations of transitioning, this is a plea for you to survive. “i90” is not a triumphant end to the record, but it is a true one. Until we can burn this whole thing down and build a new world in our image, all you can do is keep the rhythm and, God, stay alive, please.

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Lillian Weber is a fake librarian in NYC. She writes about gender, music, and other inane thoughts on her substack, all my selves aligned. You can follow her burner account on Twitter @Lilymweber

Teens In Trouble – What's Mine | Album Review

Asian Man Records

When you think of North Carolina, what are some of the first things that come to mind? Most people would probably mention how the state’s passion for college basketball teams reaches a messianic level or how the delectable fried chicken and buttermilk biscuits from Bojangles just hit different. But what’s flying under the radar Wright-brothers-style is how influential The Tar Heel State is when it comes to indie music. The lineage started in the early 90s with noise rock acts like Archers of Loaf and Superchunk. Today, bands like Wednesday, MJ Lenderman, and Indigo De Souza have roared onto the scene, creating memorable albums that stick in your mind like super glue. Now, the newest contender to join these prestigious ranks is Raleigh resident Lizzie Killian and her band Teens in Trouble.

On their debut album, What’s Mine, Killian takes us on a blast from the past ride with a bevy of melodic hooks and heavy guitars. The record comes out the gates swinging with the fuzzy pop-punk hit “You Don’t Want To Mess With Me.” Enlisting Stefan Babcock of the band PUP, Killian sprinkles him throughout the track like a gourmet chef, adding in some extra seasoning through an assist on guitar and vocals on the chorus. She sends warning shots to a potential new love interest, singing, “And I know better than to ask the world of you / And don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

Fitting into everyday society is something that weighs heavily on Killian’s mind as she tries to navigate social norms throughout the album. She’s been trying to find her place since the start of the pandemic, and you soon start to see that this is a lifelong struggle. You can get a sense with each social faux pas she makes that Killian dies a little inside from embarrassment. In the uptempo jams “Awkward Girl” and “Autopilot,” she uses self-deprecation, calling herself “weird” and “annoying” as a tool trying to mask her destructive moments when out in public. She seeks comfort in isolation while finding peace within herself, repeating “I’ve got me / It’s just me” as a personal mantra. We know that she’s had her fair share of cringe-worthy moments throughout her life, but who among us hasn’t? We’ve all gotten to a point where something so embarrassing happens to us that we just want to curl up into a ball and die. Killian articulates the pain one feels like a seasoned veteran over groovy-sounding guitars.

Elsewhere, Killian crafts songs that make me wonder about the possibilities of time travel. Let’s say, hypothetically, it exists, and you got your grubby little hands on Doc Brown’s DeLorean. I’m jealous, by the way. If you took What’s Mine to every radio station in 1994, they wouldn’t even bat an eye at you… in fact, they’d probably thank you for bringing such a bounty of hooks to their airwaves. Killian is clearly a student of her craft because she has mastered the sound of the 90s with swirling guitars and cranked-up distortion aplenty. From the bright pop melodies to ample fuzz, when you drop the needle on What’s Mine, you’re liable to get transported back to a summer 30 years in the past without having to drive 88 mph to get there. Every Gen X person who sits at home starving for Blue-Era Weezer will be well-fed by “It’s Up To Me.” The riffs are so chunky and thrashing you would think Rivers Cuomo was playing guitar behind the curtain. The hook is simple yet gargantuan, culminating in the best song on the record. 

Killian's love of music is apparent with each passing song, from her sonic inspirations to her natural ability to capture a moment in time. In the back half of the record, we discover that music is also a window into her soul. Anyone who’s ever made a playlist for a crush knows the rollercoaster of emotion that goes into it. The careful curation of each song, the nervous handoff, and (hopefully) the pure ecstasy you feel when they end up loving it. When it all goes well, it can feel like you just won the relationship lottery, and on “Playlist,” Killian wants to listen to every one of those songs you hold dear. Throughout the rapidly paced song, she brings a wired energy as she questions what songs you listen to when you cry, when you're high, or when you're dancing alone. Nick and Norah, eat your heart out.

Teens In Trouble’s brand of indie rock tugs at your emotions with in-your-face, passionate, direct lyricism. Killian creates a safe space through playful melodies and ageless guitar riffs that make going through the difficulties of finding your societal belonging not so burdensome. Her songs touch upon social anxiety, loneliness, and embarrassment in ways that can be used directly by the younger generation as a coming-of-age text. Killian confronting her struggles with self-acceptance on What's Mine shows that the growth process never stops even past your formative years. We’re lucky that she’s here to use her voice not only to help herself but also the teens who are actually in trouble. 

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David is a content mercenary based in Chicago. He's also a freelance writer specializing in music, movies, and culture. His hidden talents are his mid-range jump shot and the ability to always be able to tell when someone is uncomfortable at a party. You can find him scrolling away on Instagram @davidmwill89, Twitter @Cobretti24, or Medium @davidmwms.

Stars Hollow – In the Flower Bed | EP Review

Acrobat Unstable Records

Emo has come a long way in the three years since Stars Hollow's last release. Whatever phase of emo we’re in these days—5th wave, post-emo, whatever—Stars Hollow is back for more existential jams and tasty riffs with their third EP, In the Flower Bed.

In general, the genre we’ve come to sometimes ironically call “emo” has come a long way since this photo.

All but two of the bands featured in this photo have largely faded into the ether, for some reasons worse than others. That speaks volumes about the volatile nature of this genre as a whole. After their first full-length LP in 2021, the future of Stars Hollow was up in the air. Too fresh off a global pandemic to properly tour, the trio spent the intervening years working on their careers, pursuing higher education, and discovering themselves. Letting their body of work speak for itself, the band reformed three years later, ready to take another swing at it. Leaning back on the short form of their earlier releases, the group has reemerged with a collection of songs that pick right back up where they left off. 

From the introductory first track, the Iowa-based trio kicks off the EP as if they never left, jumping right back into the exact type of morbid lyricism we've come to love from the band. Continuing the grotesquely dark themes found in the rest of the Stars Hollow discography, vocalist Tyler Stodghill beckons, “I’m laying out / the clothes I’ll be buried in.” The EP’s minute-long commencement sets the stage for the themes of rejuvenation found throughout the following four tracks.

If I were to boil Stars Hollow down to just a few things, it'd be 1) twinkly-ass emo riffs, 2) a penchant for the above-mentioned dark lyricism, and 3) punctual tracks. The band’s latest EP features five songs, only one of which is over two and a half minutes. This is something that I love from music in general, no matter the artist. My internet-fried Gen Z brain can’t withstand tracks longer than four minutes, and Stars Hollow almost always deliver on this front. With In The Flower Bed, the band manages to pack meaningful lyrics and crowd-swirling riffs into two-minute windows that keep everything feeling effective, emotive, and impactful.

Despite its 10-minute run time, the band is able to get across their message loud and clear. Crafted as a concept EP about the complicated relationship we hold with our past selves, the tacks seem to swap back and forth between Stoghill’s “who I was back then” and himself in present day. Hindsight is always 20/20, and it’s difficult not to be frustrated with your past self when looking back and all the mistakes are in plain sight. This EP challenges that notion by shifting it into a positive one. Rather than throwing out who he once was, Stoghill is burying it out back and watching it grow. 

The band also delivers on their signature twinkly emo sound throughout the EP. For example, track two, “Thorns,” starts with a bouncy intro akin to what we hear on their 2019 single, “Tadpole.” It’s patently Stars Hollow and a warm way to welcome fans back into the band’s world. 

Twinkle shredding is all well and good, but that’s also not all we find on the EP. Track four, ”Sickening,” finds the band at their heaviest since their debut EP, I’m Really Not That Upset About It. On this song, Stars Hollow enters their Sempiternal era, ending the track on a breakdown paired with a glitched-out scream that feels very 2013 metalcore in the best way. The track also features some of the darkest lyricism on an already dread-filled EP, with Stodghill at one point shouting, “It hurts to not tell you / I want to crack my fucking skull / on pavement.” The group follows up on that heaviness with one of their softest tracks ever, in the form of their closing title track, “In the Flower Bed.” This juxtaposition makes for a quaint ending to the release that also recounts the overall themes of the EP. 

In the Flower Bed places the listener out in the garden, with many of the tracks about burying what once was yet still valuing that person, place, or time in the past for what they contributed. Throughout these five songs, there are various times where Stodghill mentions killing who he was back then, a sentiment listeners are encouraged to take as literally or figuratively as they want. However, the album lands softly in the end, wrapping up with the line, “sinking slowly / never lonely / in the flower bed.” 

Despite its sometimes graphic lyricism, In The Flower Bed fosters a space of growth, optimism, and reconciliation. Just because something is emo doesn’t mean it has to be hopeless. As the band walks us through these anguished sentiments, brutal lyrics, and knotty riffs, this EP is ultimately about burying your past self to forge a better future. Sometimes, you have to work through the dark stuff to reach the fresh start that’s waiting on the other side. 

The final track ends fittingly with a soft callback to the band's 2018 EP, Happy Again. Echoes of the band’s older lyrics float around the listener, with some distant, younger version of Stodghill singing, “I’m the not same / I’ll be happy again.” For just a moment, these two selves exist simultaneously, briefly acknowledging one another before the song fades to black, leaving us in the flower bed, present day, with nothing but boundless options before us. 

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Brandon Cortez is a writer/musician residing in El Paso, Texas, with his girlfriend and two cats. When not playing in shitty local emo bands, you can find him grinding Elden Ring on his second cup of cold brew. Find him on Twitter @numetalrev.

Butterflies Don’t Go Away: Majesty Crush’s Long-awaited Moment

Numero Group

I often find myself consumed by life’s “what if” moments. The chance of it all. The little things that never happened. There are different levels of “what if”—missing a train, leaving a party early, deciding to move across the country—but the sentiment remains true: in some other reality out there, there’s a version of you that is living with the repercussions of catching the train, staying at the party, or not moving. You have no idea what their life is like, and you just have to be okay with that. Most of the time, I’m not.

Some people like to think the things that are supposed to happen will happen, one way or another. Like meeting your partner on a dating app in your twenties, then learning you overlapped a few years at summer camp as kids, or finally landing the dream job you were rejected from at the start of your career. They’ll say it’s all about ‘timing’ and ‘alignment’ and ‘what the universe has in store.’ That’s too much relying on external forces for me, but I’ll admit it’s nice to relinquish control of your life for a second.

Is it obvious I was just emotionally wrecked by Past Lives? Anyway…

A lot of the time, life isn’t that simple. It’s sprawling, multifaceted, and confusing, with no direct answers or guaranteed results. Even when good things happen to us, it’s easy to nitpick what’s wrong with any given situation. But you’re still allowed to feel joy when a dream you had is finally coming to fruition.

This back-and-forth about fate versus control mirrors Majesty Crush’s journey over the last three decades. Back with a career-spanning double LP thanks to Numero Group, Butterflies Don’t Go Away combines a repress of their 1993 record Love 15 with a second disc of singles, rarities, and previously unavailable tracks. I’d argue it’s one of the most important reissues, at least in the last five years, but to understand that, we need to take a look back.

Photo By Amy Harlan

Majesty Crush is often referred to as one of the ‘forgotten’ bands of the early ‘90s shoegaze boom. The Detroit-based four-piece differentiated themselves with an innate ability to mutate from shoegaze to dream-pop to punk to grunge and back again. David Stroughter led the band as a reluctant, Syd Barrett-type frontman whose piercing vocals glided over the instrumentals, with Hobey Echlin on bass, Mike Segal on guitar, and Odell Nails III on drums. Together, they created a sweeping and all-consuming sound that made them stand out, mostly because people really couldn’t pin them down. The group quickly gained notoriety within their Midwest community, earning significant airplay on college and alternative rock radio stations. Opening for everyone from Mazzy Star and Sonic Youth to Royal Trux and The Verve, Majesty Crush seemed to be able to win over audiences in just about any scene. Yet no one could figure them out.

Majesty Crush’s mixed-race lineup made them something of an anomaly in the predominantly British shoegaze scene. It was hard to get a read of the band’s sound just by their appearance, something bassist Hobey Echlin says he thinks made the group so special in their local scene: fans had never heard anything like Majesty Crush, let alone from people that look like them. 

Immediately following the release of Love 15 in 1993, Majesty Crush’s label Dali, an Elektra subsidiary, shuttered, making it their first and only full-length LP. Here were these local legends, ready to spread their sound way outside the confines of their city, who suddenly had no backing or promotion to hold them up. Because of this, Love 15 fell through the cracks. As grunge quickly swept up the remains of a shoegaze/dream-pop scene in the US, Majesty Crush remained under the radar. The group went on to release one final EP, Sans Muscles, on their own Vulva Records before disbanding in 1995. 

Over the next 30 years, the band members split off into a disparate web of careers, including but not limited to yoga instructing, graphic design, law, and journalism. But the music remained, especially for Stroughter, who continued to record and release as P.S. I Love You, even recruiting Crush bassist Echlin to play drums on some tracks.

Eventually, the group settled in different parts of the country. In 2017, years after his last communication with anyone from Majesty Crush, David Stroughter was killed by police in El Segundo. Stroughter’s mental health continued to decline throughout the aughts, and his nomadic lifestyle made it difficult for him to regularly have access to his medications. While the LA County District Attorney deemed the police’s use of their guns lawful, the need for such force remains heavily debated, making this another case of unnecessarily escalated police violence against people of color.

And now, in 2024, Numero Group is offering listeners the most comprehensive collection of Majesty Crush music ever. In 2019, it was revealed that Stroughter had left Majesty Crush master tapes in an old roommate’s closet and had asked his sister to be the custodian of his music. Without realizing it, Stroughter left the rest of Majesty Crush (and the world) a gift he never could have anticipated. 

With this reissue, Majesty Crush’s discography is newly available to day-one fans who remember seeing them live in Detroit all those years ago, as well as newfound shoegazers hungry for more sounds. This is especially true as the shoegaze genre is enjoying a renaissance, thanks in part to TikTok, opening the door for Majesty Crush to finally get their long-deserved recognition. Some would argue that a shoegaze resurgence and social media virality was exactly what Majesty Crush desperately needed back in the ‘90s (I can see the ‘Our label closed right after our debut album dropped’ multi-part TikTok series so clearly), but it came at the price of Stroughter losing his life, prompting the discovery of these masters. Now, Stroughter isn’t here to see how many new ears have found his music and are moved by his gutturally passionate vocals and ultra-specific storytelling. It’s heartbreaking to think that Majesty Crush’s “time” came after they lost the man who tied them all together and became the beacon of their sound. 

Photo by Jack Nelson

Butterflies Don’t Go Away takes listeners on Majesty Crush’s tumultuous journey through early versions of Love 15 tracks (“No. 1 Fan - EP Version,” “Horse - EP Version,” “Purr 7” Version”), their first-ever release (“Sunny Pie”), and songs from the post-label shuttering EP Sans Muscles. Through these tracks, we see a band finding, then possibly attempting to change, their sound. The humble basement beginnings are clear on the noisiest tracks like the 7” version of “Purr” and the EP rendition of “No. 1 Fan,” but the stars align on Love 15 tracks like “Boyfriend” and “Grow.” The group’s post-label loss anguish clearly rips through Sans Muscles songs like “Seine” and “Ghost of Fun.” 

On Love 15, “Purr” is a minute-long cascade akin to Pink Floyd’s “Breathe (In the Air),” however, on the 7” rendition, we hear the song as it was originally released: as a four-minute single, complete with expansive, brain-scratching guitar textures. While the single version of “Cicciolina,” a song Stroughter wrote about an Italian porn star, is sauntering, moody, and slowed, the album version more fully encapsulates the rage-meets-desire feeling Stroughter felt for this woman, with Mike Segal’s crunchy and grating guitar, Hobey Echlin’s hypnotic bass lines, and Odell Nails’ pulsing backing rhythms propelling the track forward. 

Stroughter escalates the idea of female obsession throughout these songs, with most lyrics toeing the line of a twisted psycho-sexual fantasy. These songs are often the darkest yet poppiest tracks, which was at the heart of Majesty Crush’s approach to songwriting: take these pop sensibilities, blow them out, and then share your deepest, darkest secrets on top of them.

While researching this piece, I found myself so consumed by everything about Majesty Crush’s music and story that I eventually came into contact with bassist Hobey Echlin. I got to speak with him in March and hear his perspective on the group’s writing processes and how it feels to reenter the musical conversation. On Stroughter’s lyricism, Echlin told me, “No one could write about having a crush in such a multidimensional way.” 

“Boyfriend” starts Love 15 off with a thesis statement about torturing and killing a girl’s partner so she would fall for Stroughter instead. The scene-setting in this song alone highlights the rapid escalation of Stroughter’s internal monologue, with the opening lines explaining that he sees this beautiful girl on the train and immediately spirals into an internal dialogue of ‘Why is she with that guy when she can be with me?’ He uses his wit to prove he is superior (her boyfriend apparently can’t even get her soup order right: “He’ll bring you minestrone when you want egg drop”—Stroughter would never do that). But it doesn’t stop there: the next two songs are also about crazed feminine obsession. There’s “Uma,” presumably about actress Uma Thurman, then “No. 1 Fan,” the band’s most popular song that takes inspiration from John Hinkcley Jr.’s obsession with Jodie Foster, leading to his attempt at assassinating Ronald Reagan (depicted in on-the-nose lyrics “I’ll kill the president (For your love)”). Both tracks are all-consuming and massive; on “Uma,” Segal breaks into psychedelic guitar passes that sound like so much more than just the distortion, tremolo, and delay effects he stuck with. Meanwhile, “No. 1 Fan” completely immerses the listener into its crazed, modern-day stan POV through Stroughter’s desperate wails, Nails’ deep drum textures, and Echlin’s melodic bass tying the whole thing together. Other tracks hit on this theme, including “Seles,” “Grow,” and “Horse.” Even “Sunny Pie,” the first song Majesty Crush ever released, was about an experience with a girl working at an adult book store. 

The truest peek inside Stroughter’s mind listeners ever get in the Majesty Crush discography is “Brand,” a middle-of-the-A-side track that Echlin recently called “a step away from album filler” in an interview with Stained Glass Stories. In speaking with him, he clarified that he was mainly talking about the repetition in the instrumentation, saying, “Musically, it’s not the one with the fireworks, but lyrically, it's the most down-to-earth and personable, and it's Dave turning his lens on himself.” This track is one of my personal highlights, featuring Stroughter delivering a confessional of his everyday existence rather than spinning the narrative onto his latest craze. “I’m always so fucking drunk / I wake up with a bottle in my hands / I go to bed with a bottle touching my lips” paints the perfect picture of a man clinging to his vices to get through the day-to-day. The repetition, both lyrically and instrumentally, is overtaking, with Stroughter’s echoing vocals sweeping around listeners. These crisp deliveries also set Majesty Crush apart from the other shoegaze groups at the time: where many were mumbling through fragmented lines, Stroughter was telling a whole story, creating an entire atmosphere, and you could actually understand what he was saying. The emotions in his voice cut through your ears and go straight to your heart. “Brand,” specifically, is even more profound now as we look back, as it’s one of the most authentic looks into Stroughter’s mind that we will ever receive. 

Fundamentally, Majesty Crush wrote pop songs. The group approached songwriting in three elements: Part, Break, and Window, each time taking little liberties and twisting the structure in unique ways. Echlin compared their process to riffing off of an idea, continuing to make it better and take it farther. The most important part of a Majesty Crush song, in my opinion, is the Window: the chance for the cathartic and anthemic release that often comes at the end of their tracks. The perfect example of this songwriting approach is “Penny For Love,” a song that gives the same feeling as The Smiths doing a rendition of The Cure’s “Just Like Heaven.” One of the most straightforward tracks on the record, the up-tempo melodies and catchy guitar riffs mask the story of prostitution hidden in the lyrics. But you can hear the release in Stroughter’s vocals, the overflow and sighs he adds to lines like “Cause honey tastes so good.” Penultimate track, “Feigned Sleep,” is at the other end of this spectrum: it’s one of the most expansive tracks on the record that still utilizes the Part/Break/Window song structure. It sends the same shiver down my spine that I get when listening to something like “Jesus Christ” by Brand New, with the rhythm section acting as the song’s heartbeat. The repetitive drawl of the guitar and vocals builds a gripping intensity to the end of the song. The catharsis eventually overflows as backing vocals, drilling drum patterns, intricate bass runs, and circling guitar riffs layer on top of each other, emphasizing how Majesty Crush can take anything standardly pop and make it their own.

The tracks off of Sans Muscles see the repercussions of the post-shoegaze musical landscape Majesty Crush found themselves in by 1994. Grunge was taking over, and you can hear the pressure to be heavier on songs like “Seine,” which sounds like an alternate rendition of Nirvana’s “Scentless Apprentice.” Then there’s “Ghost of Fun,” which utilizes electronic patterns, hinting at a possible future direction the band could have taken. Left with nothing after Dali folded, Majesty Crush took out their frustrations through brooding backbeats, heavy guitars, and Dave’s aggression tying it all together. The group got meta with it, too. Take “If JFA Were Still Together,” a track that combines Deftones-esque blown-out drums juxtaposed with a melodic bass and glittering poppy guitars. Echlin says the track was their ‘what if’ moment after losing it all at the end of ‘93: “It’s kind of like, what happens when your favorite band breaks up? You lose your sense, you lose your bearings.”

“Space Between Your Moles” sounds the most like a Love 15 b-side, with lyrics even calling back to the debut as Stroughter delicately intones, “15 for you and love for the space between your moles.” The track has a Mazzy Star-type of relaxation, sounding like the closest thing Majesty Crush would ever get to a shoegaze ballad. Another instance of Majesty Crush simultaneously fitting into these rock niches and defying the category completely. Echlin says the Sans Muscles tracks were “the logical progression of Majesty Crush,” the emotionally charged next step that propelled them into this angrier sound while still keeping their shoegaze mastery close.

Butterflies Don’t Go Away perfectly encapsulates the Majesty Crush story: from noisy basement beginnings to the moments it all came together, and what happens in the aftermath of having the rug pulled out from under you. In speaking with Echlin, he told me he loves the Numero repress because it “gives just as much emphasis to the footnotes of our career as our big stuff,” offering listeners a chance to hear their trajectory in real-time. Stroughter had said, “If anything happens to me, I just want my music to be heard.” While he’s not here to see it, it’s nice to know that his music is finally reaching more ears and finding its audience. There’s now a whole new generation of shoegazers finding their solace in David Stroughter’s immersive storytelling and the sonic journey of Majesty Crush.

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Cassidy is a music writer and cultural researcher currently based in Brooklyn. She loves many things, including but not limited to rabbit holes, Caroline Polachek, blueberry pancakes, her cat Seamus, and adding to her record collection. She is on Twitter @cassidynicolee_, and you can check out more of her writing on Medium.

Um, Jennifer? – The Girl Class | EP Review

Final Girl Records

It’s an unspoken rule that if you are a queer person who wants to be taken seriously as a purveyor of modern rock music, you should be miserable. It doesn’t necessarily have to be abject misery: melancholy, disaffection, and unrequited longing will suffice. This was as true of Melissa Etheridge’s wailing lamentations that she’s “the only one who’ll drown in [her] desire for you” in 1993, down to the three boys genius combining the strength of their collective ennui to Grammy-winning success more recently. From Tegan & Sara, to Perfume Genius, to Girlpool, and Ethel Cain, this much is true: to succeed as a queer rock musician, you must be willing to bleed.

I’m hopeful, dear reader, that you can not only recognize hyperbole but forgive it as well.

To say there has never been a happy queer rock act would be patently untrue. One of the very first rock stars, queer or otherwise, was Little Richard, who built his career on frenetic party bangers. Classic rock stalwarts Elton John and Freddie Mercury famously brought queer joie de vivre to everything they ever did. Even Rob Halford has a sort of playfulness–at least, as much playfulness as his subgenre allows for. But listening to Um, Jennifer’s new EP, The Girl Class, had me wondering when the last time I heard a rock band be this queer and this effervescent at the same time.

“Girl Class,” the title track, opens the EP with a throwback to late 90s/early 00s alternative rock: the answering machine message–not just an answering machine message, but the dialing of a rotary phone (in this, the year of our lord, two-thousand-and-twenty-four) that goes DIRECTLY to the machine after one ring.

I’m packing my bags for Camp Nostalgia.

I love this motif, and it’s used to great effect. Our singer, Fig, introduces themself and delivers the thesis statement of the song to the person they’re calling: “I’m having a lot of trouble being a girl, and you’re really good at being a girl, and I was wondering if you wanted to hang out, or we could get coffee or something, or whatever, yeah, give me a call back.” What follows is an ode to friendship and self-acceptance that concludes with actual, fool-proof instructions on how to be a girl: “Step 1: say you’re a girl; Step 2: you are a girl.”

On “Glamor Girl,” our second vocalist, Eli, moves in a different direction. They take an outside perspective on how a devastatingly sexy lady is driving them crazy and ruining their life. This theme continues with a later track, “Cut Me Open,” where Eli addresses someone who has them consumed with desire to the point that they want to be torn open and cannibalized by them: a universal experience I’m sure we can all relate to.

Something I really like about this band is the salty/sweet dynamic between the two singers. Eli’s songs are characterized by a frank and expressive discussion of sexuality, while Fig’s are more whimsical. For example, in “Jazz Machine,” Fig describes their paramour as a sort of fabulous intergalactic entity, a “roller rink jazz machine,” and still somehow very human, with insecurities and an absolutely filthy bedroom.

Photo by Avery Davis

The unifying factor between these two collaborators seems to be a willingness to just let things be fun and unserious. In fact, one could say that the overarching theme for this collection of songs is affirming the things that make you feel insecure don’t have to be the end of the world unless you treat them that way.

It's this sense of levity that really distinguishes Um, Jennifer from other, perhaps more established artists talking about their queer experience. Their willingness to say, “I’m not feeling all that great about myself, and I’m painfully horny,” while treating that like a hilarious anecdote, really sets them apart from queer singer/songwriters who would say the same thing and treat it as a dirge. Not to diminish either method, both are valid, but the lighthearted approach makes them feel distinct in the moodier musical landscape of 2024.

It also goes without saying that being witty and self-effacing is just naturally more inviting. It makes people want to like you and want to relate to you. Um, Jennifer is extremely charming in this way. This is a band that pitched the release party for this EP as “an exhilarating night of trans slut rock,” further describing the theme as “inspired by Jennifer’s Body - blood, guts, and being really hot.” I don’t know about you, but that sounds like my kind of party: they sound like the kind of people I want to be friends with, and I think this approach will win them many fans.

When it comes down to it, it’s no secret that we, as queer people, often face a lot of harrowing circumstances, a lot of sadness, and a lot of loneliness and inner turmoil. Likewise, it’s a well-documented fact that channeling hardship into creativity can generate powerful works of art. I think it speaks volumes about the way we're feeling in the current political climate that so many queer musicians are writing tons of sad songs. I think it’s important to acknowledge this. But I also think it’s important to see the joy in your queerness, to find the humor in it, and to celebrate it. So, in that way, I think we have really needed a band like this loud, funny, over-the-top duo of trans kids from Brooklyn to remind us that it’s okay to let loose and be ridiculous every once in a while.

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Brad Walker is a writer, comedian, and storyteller from Columbus, Ohio. Find him on the World Wide Web:@bradurdaynightlive on Instagram and@bradurdaynightlive.bsky.social on Bluesky.