<p><span><span>- When I read that <strong>Kellie Lloyd </strong>was Australia’s uncrowned queen of shoegaze / dreampop, I gotta say, I didn’t even know she was after the job. I suppose joining <strong>Deafcult </strong>was a good start, but she’s done a lot in her career, as a member of one of Australia’s most stalwart indie bands, <strong>Screamfeeder</strong>, and a whole lot on her own too, but most of which I don’t remember sounding like <strong>Slowdive</strong>. </span></span></p>
<p><span><span>I had to go and look up her long back-catalogue to see where these claims to sweet, fuzzy nobility were coming from. Her ‘90s work is more grunge-diva, a-la <strong>Courtney Love</strong>, but after that things get considerably more refined, definitely channeling dreampop in a <strong>Mazzy Star</strong> style. There maybe stuff I’m missing but I think you’ll hear the first distant, rolling, shoegaze thunder on 2017’s <em>Fragile States</em>. If you needed more warning than that, too bad, because Kellie and her new band, <strong>Majestic Horses</strong> come crashing through on their debut full-length <em>Away From The Sun</em> and it’s all ‘gaze, all the time.</span></span></p>
<p><span><span>From what I understand, this new fixation came about when she met up on tour with <strong>Kate Wilson </strong>(formerly of Sydneyside shoegazers <strong>The Laurels</strong>). Kellie liked the <strong>Ride</strong> vibe she was getting from Kate’s drumming and on the strength of that they hooked up with mutual friend <strong>Andrew P Street </strong>on bass, forming a loud little trio. It doesn’t really sound like Ride, if you were wondering; neither particularly psychedelic nor as upbeat as I recall the Oxford lads being. Instead, much of MH’s opening salvo is slow and languorous. Moody in a melancholy way, but also drawing on a reservoir of submerged anger, which is perhaps most obvious on opener and single <em>Call You Out</em>. “<em>I guess it doesn’t matter anymore / You only meant it as a joke / So hard to find funny anymore.</em>” Kellie sounds a little tired, illustrating the endless parade of sexist idiots, saying sexist things and then saying they were only joking. If there’s an upside, it’s that she doesn’t have to scream in frustration, the guitars are doing that for her.</span></span></p>
<p><span><span>It isn’t all doom and gloom, the whole band sound positively enthused for two whole minutes of pop as Kellie declares “<em>we’re here to destroy everything</em>” on the song of the same name. Some of that energy then leaks into the elegant strut of <em>Signal</em> which finds Kellie sounding even more alarmingly pleased as she asks “<em>Do we burn the whole city down? / Can we burn it all down?</em>” Unholy fervour then flips out into nervy desperation and hopelessness worthy of <strong>Morrissey</strong> (albeit with different politics than he practices these days) on <em>Opinions</em> “<em>The truth is dead / Words mean nothing / All hope has fled.</em>”</span></span></p>
<p><span><span>It’s strange, for all of these churning feelings, the ‘gaze does what ‘gaze so often does and acts like a big ol’ antidepressant. It really is hard to feel truly abandoned when you’re wrapped in the gauzy warmth of a million decibels of guitar. Musically it’s also a leveller, really evening things out. If you listen closely you can hear much of Kellie Lloyd’s musical heritage sloshing around inside the record: from grungey riot-grrrl at one extreme to the sweet indie-pop of the other, all burning up in the same bonfire of distortion. I guess that diversity is as good a recommendation for Majestic Horses as any: too often young shoegaze bands hide their musical inadequacies behind a wall of noise, but on <em>Away From The Sun</em>, the opposite is true. </span></span></p>
<p><span><span>Is Kellie Lloyd the ‘uncrowned queen of shoegaze’ in Australia? Given the emotional tenor of this record I think she’s more like its ‘vengeful revolutionary vanguard’. It’s unusual to see in such a veteran muso, but seething with discontent, Kellie Lloyd wants to burn the whole thing down and let it collapse into cold ash, drifting <em>Away From The Sun</em>. That’s its own kind of dark majesty and I don’t know if it would be very wise to contest the claim.</span></span></p>
<p><span><span>- Chris Cobcroft.</span></span></p>
<iframe style="border: 0; width: 100%; height: 120px;" src="https://bandcamp.com/EmbeddedPlayer/album=2200676551/size=large/bgcol=f…; seamless><a href="http://kasumuen.bandcamp.com/album/away-from-the-sun">Away from the Sun by Majestic Horses</a></iframe>
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