Juno is one of those rare bands that make me really, truly appreciate my apparent lot as a minor Seattle music critic/enthusiast. Through the usual course of my endeavors in this field, the local bands I’ve encountered fall into these lamentable categories: the minimally talented scenester hacks who ride the undeserving genuflections of the local press; the decent indie outfits who nonetheless sound too similar to the more well known musical titans of this area (I call them “cardigan rockers”); and the few bands which are awfully incredible and horrendously under appreciated at the same time. (Any of you curious about such wonderful entities can e-mail me for a bellicose and comprehensive list.)

Juno have stood out as being one of the only bands in recent memory to explode all those categories, and that just warms the fuck out of my heart. In their few short years here, the five noise-sculptors of Juno have summoned a distinctly etched sound, crafted a clarion call of a debut album which demanded and received just attention from the national powers that be, and clawed their way from playing packed shows in derelict basements and lofts (awesome shows, by the by) to playing packed shows in large, prestigious clubs. And you could still see them at other bands’ concerts or down at the local bowling alley, to boot.

And that about brings us up to the present day, and the band’s just-released second work A Future Lived in Past Tense. Now, I’m not gonna mince words -- with this one Juno has managed to both expand and cement its position as one of the most noteworthy artists in the country. Yes, I am aware this sounds like hyperbole, but A Future Lived… really exemplifies the praise. Juno has taken their dense three-guitar sound and layered it with even more strata of emotional subtleties and beautiful disdain. At the same time, all restraints have been unmoored, with songs such as the exquisite “When I Was In ______”, veering and careening recklessly, fueled and sustained by their own self-generating noise-dynamos. (At this point, I would like to take a moment of thanks for drummer Greg Ferguson, who provides the needed scoleotic spine for such outbursts.) Others like the incredibly named “The Trail of Your Blood in the Snow” quietly rotate, their many facets glittering like a thousand knife edges.

Arlie Carsten’s vocals color the songs, giving even more hypnotic pull to the lunar revolutions of the band and at the same time never overshadow the music. Though occasionally phrases stick out from the fray, (such as the stop dead in your tracks line “Your son’s hands stayed warm long after he died,”) for the most part the vocals and lyrics integrate themselves seamlessly into the overall flow, making for a sum total experience of unfailing intelligence and insistent power.

Juno use sound as a canvas, much like the Velvet Underground and Television did back in the pre-dawn days. It’s art-rock in all the old, right ways; massive, evocative, ego less (thus avoiding the Velvet’s pitfall) creating contained universes of gusting, eddying, drifting, melodic, abrasive all consuming sound. Though some have criticized Juno for dwelling too much on the darker side of life (most of the songs on A Future Lived… address unhappiness and death directly or indirectly) Juno relentlessly search for the melodic salvation, the beautiful, inspiring, and ultimately redeeming moments in the frustrated worlds they have created, and also the world they inhabit. When they find such moments, we all resound with their victory.

by Reed Jackson