After hours of idly lounging in the passenger seat, eyes dragged open by the flurry of storms, the last thing you want to do is put the key in the door and get back to work. It has taken days to recover but just one good song, one glimmer of hope and a touch of class gets the brain in motion once more. Pools of Colour, the latest work from Junodream, will pull you out and kick your head in. It is needed. Do what must be done to get back on course – listen to Pools of Colour, sprint around your room, clean your desk as though the mess inside your drawers is what puts you off. Centre your attention with an exceptional piece of music, their shifting electronic qualities affected by a Radiohead quality.
That is not to say the band is identical in motion or tone to the Thom Yorke-led unit, far from it, but the appeal and unwavering commitment Junodream must layer upon layer in each of their tracks is mesmerising. It gives wild and shifting tones in opener Fever Dream a new level of exceptional quality. Those whispered vocals, the clangs and small flourishes compound into a masterful first track for Junodream’s debut, a remarkable series of songs. Death Drive feels like a nice transition into the weighty tones and jitters of radio static-like appeal on The Beach. Its interjections of drifting vocals, the shimmering appeal of its guitar work, and those echoes and sliding notes are also thrown up on Sit in the Park.
Slight tinges of grunge filter through the pangs of shameless openness – not quite an anti-romance song but the burning strings which flow through it ever-so-slightly are a monumental addition. Pools of Colour benefits thoroughly from being open, disgruntled by its difficulties but accepting of the heartbreak and horrors which await. Anti-drugs peddling on Alien Adventure still has the high and mighty appeal to it, the same constants of the wall of sound style Pools of Colour has. However, it is keen to make space for lyricist Ed Vyvyan who charts these claustrophobic feelings with confidence and a real desire to pull through, to give his listeners a shot at doing the same. Pools of Colour is a dark record, filled with the constants of paranoia which comes from a lack of sleep, but in its warmer corners, pieces like Happiness Advantage, comes to a real urgency to put an arm around the listener, to assure them something will change.
That it does – and for Junodream it occurs slowly but surely throughout this, a real turning point in album closer The Oranges. Breathe, breathe breathe. That repetition is all you need to hear – the moment of clarity, the penny dropping, whatever you wish to call it can be found on this final track. Junodream impresses on their debut but, more than anything else, sounds secure and confident in a style charted before them and no doubt after them, but handles the middle ground with an intense and justifiable appearance. Within this piece is a heartfelt and troubled achievement, a desire to say the right things but getting it in the wrong order. Mistakes are made, but relax in the ways you know how to – Pools of Colour demands it. Give in to one of the best records of the year, there is no doubt about it so early into this windy, wet and wild start to the changing times.
