JUNO REACTOR GODS AND MONSTERS ALBUM METROPOLIS RELEASE: APRIL 22, 2008 REVIEW: APRIL 30, 2008

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 admission 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.

PETER MARKS