I know I've seen Junip live, but I can't for the life of me remember where. I remember seeing José Gonzáles live in Tavastia, a legendary rock venue in Helsinki. His quiet guitar-playing was almost overpowered by a loud punk band playing in Semifinaali, a smaller venue right next door. Not really remembering the Junip gig properly suggests that it wasn't a very memorable gig. I do remember buying this album from the gig. The CD I have is a special edition that also has a couple of EPs included. At the time of the release of this album, this CD probably included all the released material from Junip, which was a nice thought for a collector such as myself.
The album starts with the song In Every Direction. You can almost hear José Gonzáles' normal acoustic sound in the background and the song gets a strange feel from all the additional instruments on top of the guitar. There's a lot of buzzing that changes the sound, but maintains the mood. Always shows a more acoustic side of the band and all that's different to Gonzalés' solo music is the drumming. Although the chorus has a bit of rock organs as well. Rope & Summit is my favourite song on the album. The Rhodes organs in the song are just beautiful and I really like the hypnotic beat that continues throughout the song. Without You has kind of a repetitive riff throughout the song, but what makes the song interesting is the trembling overdriven bass sound that zooms in and out. It's Alright starts like any one of Gonzalés' solo songs mostly with just amazingly picked nylon string guitar. The percussions are building up as the song progresses. Howl starts with a fast tempo drum beat and buzzing bass with strange muffled overdrive. This is the kind of song that really shows the benefit of a band around the guitar and vocals. Sweet & Bitter brings out even more rhythmic approach to songwriting. The melody is quite repetitive, but the instruments that keep building on top of each other sounds really good. Don't Let It Pass has more of that melancholy that I really like in Gonzalés' solo songs. Off Point has a good running tempo and the rock organs keep the nice carpet under the whole song. To The Grain brings out some more of that acoustic guitar combined with airy strings and rock organs. The album ends with Tide, which is a calm and slowpaced song with trembling wavy bass in the background.
The song Always has a brilliant music video. There's something deeply Nordic about the beginning of it. It's showing a bunch of middle aged men in a bar, singing karaoke and smoking cigarettes. Then the video turns to Junip playing their songs in a circle in a classroom kind of setting and the men from the video in the beginning start instructing them how to play the music without instruments. One of the guys brings in a metal music fan who shows them how to play air guitar. The video ends with Junip being dragged on stage of the World Air Guitar championships where they continue playing in a circle in their own style but without instruments while the audience cheers at them.
In a way, Junip has a very unique sound. Gonzales' songs have clearly been written for a classical guitar and they would work just as well with just the guitar. These types of songs are rarely played with a rock band and I can see a danger in that. Junip, however, handles the situation really well. Especially the chiming Rhodes organs sound incredible with the hypnotic compositions and acoustic guitars. Sometimes I feel like the more stripped approach would be better than the band, because there's more intimacy in playing solo, but I can't blame Gonzalés for wanting to explore different approaches to his music and in the songs with lots of instrumental jamming, I really do see the benefit of a band.
Listen to the album on Spotify.
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