When Alex Lloyd decided to release music under his own name, he soon established himself as a boundary-pushing artist, even as he found commercial success at home. Born in 1974 in Sydney, Australia, Lloyd started playing music in high school, ripping blues and indie-rock cuts with his early bands. But in the mid-’90s, his artistic vision began to split from his fellow band members in Mother Hubbard, pushing Lloyd to strike out on his own. The resulting record, 1999’s Black the Sun, captured late-‘90s existential angst but the sound looked ahead to the new millennium with eclectic instrumentation and complex arrangements. In the ensuing years, Lloyd has explored similar sonic territory, with symphonic, bittersweet love songs (2001’s “Amazing”), Beatles-indebted rock ‘n’ roll (2003’s “Coming Home”), and sweeping post-grunge (2005’s “Never Meant to Fail”).