Excerpt: “I am always ecstatic to see new emails and records from Hidden Shoal Recordings, a Perth, Western Australia-based label who have quickly become one of my favorite experimental music outposts over the past year. They consistently release adventurous ambient/drone, shoegaze and pop that is radiant and textured and expansive and dense with incandescent ticks from around the world.”
Excerpt: “I Haven’t Got It in Me is a hell of a consolidation. Both Mason and Braun sing this time, and “Crampling” and “City Sleeps” are both great verse/chorus/verse songs in a way that the band has never tried before. But the band’s instrumental prowess hasn’t declined—the surging “Hi” and the eight despondently cinematic minutes of opener “Stranger” are among their strongest work. From the soaring guitar scrapes of “Mitre Park” to “Take a Walk”‘s melancholy churn, I Haven’t Got It in Me is the work of a band completely comfortable with each other and with their sound. Combining elements of dream pop, post rock, and shoegaze, and with tips of the hat to everything from noise to ambient, My Majestic Star makes beautifully blurred rock music.”
Excerpt: “Perth-based post-shoegaze band My Majestic Star’s preceding impressive ‘Too Late, The Day’ collection saw the group evolve into a full live band for the first time…. Perhaps most immediately noticeable is that cellist Miriam Braun contributes vocals alongside Mason for the first time here, but overall there’s an increased feeling of rawness and live energy being harnessed, in comparison to their previous recorded work. ‘Stranger’ begins proceedings with a slow wash of languid live drums and ebbing organ tones before bleeding out into mournful cello tones, chiming guitars and droning feedback, in an opener that certainly hints towards The Dirty Three’s slow, relentless burn as it ascends towards its emotional crescendo…. In this case, the experience gained by My Majestic Star performing as a live act in support of their preceding collection goes a long way towards making ‘I Haven’t Got It In Me’ their most satisfying album to date.”
Excerpt (translated from the German): “A majestic, long-drawn sound, swelling, soft-onset synthetic drums, a seemingly endless organ sound. I Haven’t Got It In Me begins with an 8-minute dream of clouds… Voluptuous walls of guitars, melodic and dramatic landscapes and spherical sound effects of any kind achieve the goal of harmony and well-tempered satisfaction with the listener.”
