No matter how closely I scour the various corners of pop music history, there’s always something I miss. There are countless bands that have fallen through the cracks of year-end lists from various journalists, retrospectives, and trends on the music charts. And many of those bands are actually worth several damns, despite how much or little notoriety they achieved in their time.
One of these bands is Majesty Crush, a Detroit-based alt rock outfit that played local support to international shoegaze bands like The Verve, Mazzy Star, Chapterhouse, Curve (oh hey), and the immortal My Bloody Valentine. And while they weren’t themselves members of the British community that spawned shoegaze, their sound could definitely grandfather them in as canonized members of the scene.
As part of their effort to uncover these sorts of hidden legends, Numero Group has released Butterflies Don’t Fly Away, a document of Majesty Crush’s brief career that compiles their sole full-length Love 15 from 1993 with various EPs and B-sides.
Majesty Crush were outliers in about every sense. While they are mostly associated with the first wave of shoegaze, they themselves were in Detroit—which was not famed for its shoegaze scene. Like the British bands in that scene, they were heavily influenced by bands like Joy Division and Jesus and Mary Chain, but isolated as they were, they evolved their own set of characteristics. Their sound is sort of a feral beast that combines the ethereal guitar work of dream pop with the muscular grit of grunge and alt rock.
The most idiosyncratic element by far is vocals. David Stroughter eschews the abstract imagery and sighing vocals of shoegaze in favor of direct lyrics and more present delivery. His phrasing is still a bit weightless and lilting, but his voice has a bit more breath behind it. His lyrics are quite an anomaly, with certain topics feeling more appropriate for hip-hop than shoegaze (see: the physical threats in “Boyfriend” or the imagery in “Brand”). Most notable though is “No. 1 Fan,” a love letter inspired by John Hinckley Jr’s infatuation with Jodie Foster ahead of his shooting of Reagan.
What’s really special here though is the interplay of the instrumentalists. There are plenty of moments of obvious shoegaze influence, but that’s filtered through punk, Motown, and 80s alt rock pioneers like Sonic Youth and Dinosaur Jr. The guitar work in particular is especially fresh even today—which is a tough task when it feels like everyone from indie rock to hardcore to black metal has been drawing from the same elements for a decade or so now.
Unfortunately, the legend of Majesty Crush will always be fraught with What Ifs. Their label folded a month after Love 15 was released, canceling plans for a UK tour. Unable to recapture their momentum, the band broke up in 1995 and the members went to various other projects—most notably Stroughter’s P.S. I Love You and Odell Nails’ involvement with Astrobrite and Robin Guthrie of Cocteau Twins. Stroughter’s mental health spiraled and in 2017 he was killed by a police officer following a series of domestic disputes. As tragic as that event was though, the attention it brought allowed the group to finally find their master tapes, leading to this impressive document of their career. Regardless of whatever alternate realities we ca speculate to, what is undeniably true is that Majesty Crush was a special band that deserves the attention they’re finally getting.