Ire-fugged memories of [a]Jose Gonzalez[/a]’ mawkish take on [a]The Knife[/a]’s peerless ‘Heartbeats’ meant that clawing our mind open for the return of his pre-fame band [a]Junip[/a] is a thorny task – but there’s a lost-in-the-pines dark undercurrent to the Swedes’ gentle psych-folk that makes it hard to hate. The listlessness that once made Gonzalez’ voice so infuriating gives the likes of ‘Rope & Summit’ a faintly disturbing feel beneath [a]the Radio Dept[/a] fuzz and twinkles. That surprising lack of offensiveness, though, isn’t replaced with anything to particularly excite, leaving it a tasteful aural curtain of an album without much of a view beyond.
Emily Mackay
Click here to get your copy of Junip’s ‘Fields’ from Rough Trade Shops.