Posts Tagged ‘Junius’

Album of the day: Junius – Reports From The Threshold Of Death

Posted on Sunday, November 6th, 2011

Praise for Junius‘ Reports From The Threshold Of Death from San Francisco’s aQuarius Records: We first heard Boston post metal heavies on a recent split with fellow post metallers Rosetta, and were surprised by just how UNmetal these guys were.

They’re still heavy, but more like Katatonia or ‘Radiohead’ era Cave In, bombastic and epic, majestic and yeah, heavy, but clean vocals, soaring and dramatic (right down to some hazy dreamy female backup vox). The songs proggy and sprawling, unfurling brooding dramatic slow build verses, that build to massive crushing choruses, but never getting fully metal, instead blossoming into some sort of epic doom pop.  The sound is a bit mathy too, and weirdly enough, some of the tracks remind us of Three Mile Pilot, albeit a much more metallic version, but the phrasing and hypnotic rhythms definitely draw from the same sonic well.

As we mentioned in the review of that split with Rosetta, we can definitely see that this stuff might be too poppy and wimpy for a lot of metalheads, in fact, these guys opened up for some metal show here recently, and were definitely not appreciated, but hell, get these guys on a tour with Katatonia or Opeth or Lifelover, and people would be losing their mind.

And really, this stuff could and should be all over the radio, the songs are that good, the production massive, the sound incredible, just like Cave In, if there were any justice in the world, these guys would be huge. And honestly, we weren’t totally sold on these guys, but after a handful of listens, we find ourselves a little bit obsessed, playing this record like crazy.

So, recommended if you like your metal tempered with plenty of poppiness, or alternately if you can handle your pop music on the seriously heavy side. A new favorite for sure.

At 40 years old, Aquarius is the oldest independent record store in San Francisco. We try to only carry music we love, and we’re always searching for more new, cool, weird and wonderful music. All of which we then share with you, our loyal customers.

Tags: Album of the day, Aquarius Records, Junius, Post Metal, prosthetic records, Reports From The Threshold Of Death
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