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Bang! Boom! Crash! Juno Reactor's sixth proper album packs enough smoke bombs and multicoloured strobe lights to leave you quite exhausted by the end of it. The mystically tinted title ”Labyrinth” hardly seems adequate for such a bludgeoning album, unless it’s referring to the blood spattered mazes you fight your way through in Quake or some other first person shooter video game. But then the music of Juno Reactor conveys the same sort of bombastic spirituality as the ”Matrix” movies, to the soundtracks of which they have contributed (the music for the car chase in "Matrix Reloaded", for instance). Two such soundtrack songs are present on this album, in remixed versions, and their epic musical grandness is almost too much to bear. It is little wonder that Laibach once chose to cover a Juno Reactor song; the two bands certainly hold shared interests in climactic, over-the-top orchestral arrangements. Juno Reactor also retain their psychedelic trance roots, generously serving up ethnic rhythms and vocals to contrast against the blasting electric guitars and furious rhythms. The pace is relentless and the beat unstoppable, like Astral Projection, Apollo 440 and Enigma all jumbled up together, screaming for mercy. Inject in small doses. MATTIAS HUSS |
