PS I Love You - Heart of Stone (2002, Rocket Girl)

If you weren't able to get enough of Majesty Crush's lone LP, Love 15 and spate of short form releases, you'll be happy to know there was an epilogue of sorts via the late David Stroughter's subsequent project, PS I Love You.  M/C were consistently pinned with the shoegazer tag, at least by the press, but their heady dream pop inclinations were only half the story.  Beneath that gauzy glaze was sincere songwriting and a somewhat clandestine melodic undercurrent.  In a nutshell, Stroughter eschewed much of Majesty's extraneous noise, and treated PS I Love You as something of a glorified solo entity, and a comparatively breathable one at that. Ironically, one of my favorites on Heart of Stone, "Amsterdam," is none other than a blatant rewrite of M/C's "Penny for Love."  Considering how much I loved the original incarnation of that song, I'm hardly complaining!  Elsewhere we get shout-outs to a certain My Bloody Valentine frontman ("Where the Fuck if Kevin Shields") and the Beatles ("Set the Controls for the Heart of Liverpool"), alongside ruminations on far less iconic topics.

If the achingly bittersweet "Unless I See You Again" sounds vaguely familiar, it's likely because you downloaded it here, on Majesty Crush's exceedingly scarce mini-LP, P.S. I Love You, the title of which foreshadowed Stroughter's second act.

01. Irish Fuzz
02. New York
03. Where the Fuck is Kevin Shields
04. Amsterdam
05. Burnout Girl
06. Camel Toe
07. Anna
08. Love Will Find a Way
09. Hail Mary
10. Unless I See You Again
11. Set the Controls for the Heart of Liverpool
12. No Sharks Allowed

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