{"id":87956,"date":"2019-08-07T15:00:14","date_gmt":"2019-08-07T14:00:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/alreadyheard.com\/staging\/?p=87956"},"modified":"2023-04-07T14:25:56","modified_gmt":"2023-04-07T13:25:56","slug":"review-junior-beautiful-life","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alreadyheard.com\/staging\/review-junior-beautiful-life\/","title":{"rendered":"Review: Junior \u2013 Beautiful Life"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-87958 alignleft\" src=\"https:\/\/alreadyheard.com\/staging\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/08\/Beautiful-Life-Junior-300x300.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"300\" title=\"\" srcset=\"https:\/\/alreadyheard.com\/staging\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/08\/Beautiful-Life-Junior-300x300.jpg 300w, https:\/\/alreadyheard.com\/staging\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/08\/Beautiful-Life-Junior-100x100.jpg 100w, https:\/\/alreadyheard.com\/staging\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/08\/Beautiful-Life-Junior-768x768.jpg 768w, https:\/\/alreadyheard.com\/staging\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/08\/Beautiful-Life-Junior-1000x1000.jpg 1000w, https:\/\/alreadyheard.com\/staging\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/08\/Beautiful-Life-Junior-465x465.jpg 465w, https:\/\/alreadyheard.com\/staging\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/08\/Beautiful-Life-Junior-500x500.jpg 500w, https:\/\/alreadyheard.com\/staging\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/08\/Beautiful-Life-Junior-600x600.jpg 600w, https:\/\/alreadyheard.com\/staging\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/08\/Beautiful-Life-Junior.jpg 1024w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/em><\/p>\n<p>Having set a promising precedent with two EP&#8217;s &#8211; 2013&#8217;s <em>&#8216;This Town Sucked Anyways&#8217; <\/em> and 2015&#8217;s <em>&#8216;Juniorland&#8217;\u00a0<\/em>&#8211; Welsh rockers <strong>Junior<\/strong> haven&#8217;t been completely silent over the past four years. Most notably bassist and co-vocalist Mark Andrews has used his &#8220;day job&#8221; as a professional wrestler to the band&#8217;s benefit, giving them a platform for their music to be heard further afield. Nevertheless, four years is a lengthy stretch between releases, yet it&#8217;s a relief <strong>Junior<\/strong>&#8216;s debut album, <em>&#8216;Beautiful Life,&#8217;<\/em> is resounding, fun and confident.<\/p>\n<p>Instantly recognisable are classic pop-punk stylings, most explicitly those of Green Day, heard in one sense in the triumphant, breathless air-punching of &#8216;<em>P.Y.D.<\/em>&#8216; and &#8216;<em>Hey Becka<\/em>&#8216;, but also in the piano-led ballads of <em>&#8216;Baby Blue&#8217;\u00a0<\/em>and the title track, the latter with genuine rock-opera potential. As if that wasn&#8217;t enough nostalgia, <em>&#8216;When The Tower Falls&#8217;<\/em>&#8216; jagged minor-key romp recalls peak Sum 41.<\/p>\n<p><iframe title=\"Junior - Don&#039;t Know What I&#039;d Do (Official Music Video)\" width=\"800\" height=\"450\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/JQY63QUN5PU?feature=oembed&#038;enablejsapi=1&#038;origin=https:\/\/alreadyheard.com\/staging\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Such ambition exists too on\u00a0<em>&#8216;Girls and Boys&#8217;,<\/em> opening the record with a children&#8217;s choir before navigating a heady and varied structure that alternates between walls of chords, sections of restraint and beds of Biffy Clyro-like dizzying riffs. &#8216;<em>Beautiful Life&#8217; <\/em>was written across two years and recorded in three studios, and the fruits of commitment to their craft have never been more evident.<\/p>\n<p>Meanwhile,\u00a0<em>&#8216;Don&#8217;t Know What I&#8217;d Do&#8217;\u00a0<\/em>is an addictive cascade, brutish layers of guitars further reinforced by electronic nudges and Si Martin&#8217;s battered drum kit. It has an infectious, distinctive quality that is hard to shake.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Junior<\/strong> have lofty ambitions that are not only set out on <em>&#8216;Beautiful Life&#8217;<\/em>, they are largely achieved. It takes nods from titans of the genre, updating those tropes for 2019; but also finds the band pushing its limits and treading new ground. This album is sure to take them to new places and make them new admirers.<\/p>\n<p>4\/5<\/p>\n<p><em>&#8216;Beautiful Life&#8217;<\/em> by\u00a0<strong>Junior<\/strong> is out now.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Junior<\/strong> links: <a href=\"http:\/\/musicofjunior.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Website<\/a> | <a href=\"http:\/\/facebook.com\/musicofjunior\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Facebook<\/a> | <a href=\"http:\/\/twitter.com\/musicofjunior\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Twitter<\/a> | <a href=\"http:\/\/instagram.com\/musicofjunior\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Instagram<\/a> | <a href=\"https:\/\/musicofjunior.bandcamp.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Bandcamp<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Words by Peter Stewart (<a href=\"http:\/\/twitter.com\/PeteStew_\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">@PeteStew_<\/a>)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&#8220;Junior have lofty ambitions that are not only set out on &#8216;Beautiful Life&#8217;, they are largely achieved&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":87958,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[5879,17418,1490,15030],"class_list":["post-87956","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-album-reviews","tag-album-reviews","tag-beautiful-life","tag-junior","tag-peter-stewart"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.7 - 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