Juno. That’s like one of the planets moon’s isn’t it? Or am I confused? Or is it Juninho spelled wrong? Very wrong, they missed out 3 letters. As the disciples in “Good Morning With Richard Not Judy” say: Ah.
Crumbs, 53 minutes, 10 songs, or 9 really, as one is just 50 seconds of noises. Juno do a cool mix. Either they are doing that oddly uncategorisable rocking indie rock (a long the lines of, um, Farewell Bend methinks) or they are doing this dead spacey effect-laden stuff. And yup, it’s awesome. But then again it is on DeSoto, so whaddya expect?
Opening with “The Great Salt Lake” (actually, the title is way longer than that, but I can’t be bothered to type it all) they get you in the mood from the outset, with a totally drifty dreamy Antarctica-esque piece. No singing, just a voice intoning a spoken weird track over the airy backing. Absolutely marvellous, and liable to mess your head up if you are not fully conscious.
They follow that with a couple of one their more noisy indie rock efforts. “Rodeo Programmers” has a touch of At The Drive In’s about it, with assertive vocals and a hundred intertwining guitars to weave their way around your bedroom.
I think I like them more on the spacier stuff though, or maybe when they do both on the same song. “The Young Influentials” is incredibly atmospheric and swaying for the most part, and then has a much louder, splintering rock finale. “January Arms” is absolutely incredible in all its dream glory, as is the finale of “The Sea Looked Like Lead” which will just rock you to shut eye.
Oh, and “A Listening Ear” features the knee buckling Jen Wood, which would be a fair reason to buy this album on that alone, but when all the rest is as good as it is already…
Buy it, the digipack packaging rules too.