Juno Reactor – Gods & Monsters

A superb quality double or triple vinyl pressing would be welcome.

Hard to pin down as a trance electronic album but its definitely got its moments that makes it a classic, Inca Steppa is beautifully wild and weird, Las Vegas Future Past feels like its strait out of a cyber punk movie and I love the buildup on Immaculate crucifixion. Much has been said about the vocal tracks but I will say it took me years to fully appreciate Ben on The Perfect Crime, vastly underrated track on this whole project.

Juno Reactor are not a band, they are a collective of high minded musical alchemists bent on world domination. Diversity through the myriad nuances technology provides, riding the currents of both the future and the dark, distant past. When "Gods & Monsters" plays through my speakers, time loses it's focus, the world becomes irrelevant.

Hollywood flirted with them for their last album "Labyrinth" but this time around Ben Watkins and company have returned to the forward-thinking envelope shredding aural shamanism they are known and beloved all over the world for. For once, the reports that this is the most varied Reactor leak are correct. I have not heard them do such beautifully sinister content ever before. "Tokyo Dub" just pulses along, making heads nod but not in a manner consistent with the goa-trance movement this outfit emerged from, more along the lines of some serious groove.

Slower songs dominate "Gods & Monsters", specifically the sensual afterhours burner "Mind of the Free". Pianos, killer live drums and that indefinable Watkins penchant for melody puntuate and perfume this track. It becomes liquid and we are drifting in the current of subconscious abandon.

"City of the Sinful" beats the snot out of ever one of these new breed of club kiddie acts. Go ahead, listen to it. Feed the aggression with your attention, it won't do anything to you unless you'd like it to. Which is the underlining factor on "Gods & Monsters". Like Dr. Jekyll on the stoop, it will not come inside unless you invite it. Your ission to the lab is acceptance of the consequences, this album goes to and fro; from the land of the plague ridden masses to the serene aseptic backdrop of alien worlds. Juno Reactor are one of the finest electronically driven outfits the world has on offer, with good reason. "Las Vegas Future Past" has the feel of an anime defined world gone utterly wrong. On the move, on a perpetually offensive drive for mastery of the universe. No retreat, no surrender.

So Juno Reactor is at it again. As one would expect, this album is yet another step away from convetional psytrance, actually I wouldn't call this psytrance at all, rather music released by a former psytrance artist. It is also a clear sequel to Labyrinth so if you didn't like the turn in Juno's career since the Matrix sountrack you probably won't like this one either.I should also mention that this album (like most "out of the norm" stuff) really sounds good only after a LOT of listens. At first you'll pop this album and think WTF, only after about a dozen listens does it all start making sense.

Inca Steppa makes you realize that this will be a sequel to the Labyrinth album, only more commerical. At first I was like ok, Ben Watkins really screwed up this time!, but after a few more listens the singing didn't bother me as much and I realized it wasn't that bad a track, actually pretty good.

Tokyo Dub in case you were wondering, it doesn't have anything to do with dub, don't know why he called it that but anyway. Again the track starts with some pretty annoying singing Tokyo Out of My Head You Flow. Interestingly enough the singing is almost a copy of the main synth hook from Sash! - Primavera. But once again, listen to the track a certain number of times and it will all start falling into place. For example, Juno manages to take the Kbbb Kbbb bassline formula that has been used and abused by the psytrance genre for years now and makes it original by using it in a downtempo track! Now how come noone has thought of this before? Also that little japanese melody mixes in nicely with the rest. This has actually become one of my favorite tracks on the album.

Las Vegas Future Past is kindof a fusion between jazz and "juno reactor psytrance". Personally I think this is one of the weakest tracks from the album probably because I HATE jazz.

Mind of the Free souds very much like a downtempo Sci-Fi movie soundtrack. Simple and unsurprising but I like this one a lot. Proof that you don't need complexity to make something sound good.

Immaculate Cruxifiction this is the best track on the album! There is a guitar riff (well actually I'm not sure if it's an actual guitar or a synth sounding like a guitar). Anyway, it starts out as a whisper, then some trademark Juno Reactor arabic violins and then again a very creative use of the psytrance Kbbb Kbbb bassline formula, starts slowly, then the tension builds up and then wham at 3:45 the track just explodes in your face. The guitar riff that was there from the start is acompanied by other riffs, the Kbbb bassline is there but there is also a REAL drum percussion on top. The way Ben Watkins manages to fuse the synths with real instruments is just amazing. It really feels like listening to a psytrance track and a 60s psychedellic rock track rolled into one and it sounds good. Also the Matrix soundtrack feeling is present inside, the first time I've listened to this track in my car, it made me want to jump on the roof with a sword in my hands ready to fight the bad guys lol Anyway, this is a true masterpiece, I've listened to it hundreds of times since I bought the album and it just gets better and better.

City Of The Sinful is a downtempo track and kindof a mix between EBM, electro and reggae. Again, it might sound a bit wierd at first but after a few listens it all starts falling into place. This one actually has rapping inside. But again, Juno is clearly trying out new stuff here like putting a ragga voice on top of a Kraftwerk-style vocoder voice, I like it.

Tanta Pena starts with a woman screaming on the top of her lungs Tanta Penaa. The first reaction will be to turn down the volume lol But again once you pay closer attention to the track you notice that Juno is trying out new things and mastering with grace the fusion between acoustic elements and electronic synths. Like for example between 0:40 and 0:50 there is some arabic singing and a synthline. Nothing new here. But at a moment the voice "drops" to a lower key and the synthline and bassline "drop" in exactly the same way as the voice does. It is little "details" like this that make Juno's work on this album amazing.

Now come the last 2 track Perfect Crime and Pretty Girl which kindof sound like filler material. You can hear Ben Watkins singing on top of a pretty conventional acoustic country-like arrangement made me think of Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds. The synths are kept to a strict minimum, just a few atmorpheric pads. I don't quite understand why these tracks were put here, except that Ben Watkins wanted the world to hear him sing, they are clearly out of context.

Conclusion Some Juno fans will be put off by the singing which is present in almost all tracks and most will probably say that he's obviously catering for a larger audience to sell more albums, after all this one is sold on amazon for Pete's sake. Yet other people will argue that Juno is just too creative to limit his art to the narrow boundaries of psytrance. Personally I believe that both arguments are valid. That said the man clearly does someting that very few artists do: he isn't afraid to try out new things. Granted, sometimes it sounds pretty corny but other times it is great.

It took me a while to adapt to this release. Juno Reactor breaks from the tribal infused sound for a more jazzy one. While I question the choice of singers, the album's production values are top notch. I even found the singer grows on me after a while. It is a challenging album but will reward the listener if you give it time. I think it is bit unfair to expect Juno Reactor to produce the same style of album for their entire career.

I Don't like this album. it's no Juno Reactor style. it's very dissapointing. maybe it's those long lyrics that keeps me from going into a trance. i don't know, it just doesn't feel like Juno Reactor and it deffinetly doesn't sound like him. Maybe this is just a little experiment, cause it's a very weird album. it sounds like experimental pop maybe. i can't describe the genre. it's just not good. but the other albums i bought give me comfort. they are the best, and they'll always will be. hopefully they don't create another album like Gods & Monsters.