(((O))) Review: Junius – Eternal Rituals For The Accretion Of Light

Good things take time. It’s been a while but it’s so rewarding to get to listen to something new and the final part of this trilogy of conceptual albums composed by The Martyrdom Of A Catastrophist, Reports From The Threshold Of Death and, 6 years later, Eternal Rituals For The Accretion Of Light. In those 6 years there was an EP (Days of the Fallen Sun) and a split album with Rosetta.

Having now had this album on constant rotation for the past few weeks, I can conclude that, not only is this a great album, but also darker, gloomier and heavier. Don’t worry! They are still the Junius you know and have grown to love. Except now the guitars are more up front, the synths have been reduced, the bass is punchier, the drums are heavier, the song structures have been refined and the production is phenonmenal. How does that sound?

Each song stands out and each song is its own chapter. When they are all put together, the story they make is special and immense. There are so many highlights that it’s hard to know where to start. I feel like the goosebumps started from the moment I pressed play and lasted until the very last second. The story takes us from the perfectly suiting opener ‘March of the Samsara’, to the Deftones craving cure ‘A Mass for Metaphysicians’, to the nerve wrecking intensity of ‘Clean the Beast’, to the Stranger Things vibe of ‘The Queen’s Constellation’, to the Easterns vibes of ‘Telepaths and Pyramids’, and finally leading to the closer ‘Black Sarcophagus’ – one of the best tracks and a perfectly crafted progression ending with a stunningly beautiful cathartic riff.

This is by far their most diverse and best effort to this day. The experience of listening to Eternal Rituals For The Accretion Of Light has made me realize how I always took this band for granted. As much as I loved their past albums – especially Martyrdom – I never realized how special they are for me until this point. It’s harder to simply call them a post-metal band after this experience as it is just so much more than that.

I will say it again: Eternal Rituals is a big leap forward from their last releases. It loses a bit of their post-punk edge and is more direct. Some reductions here, some additions there and some refinements made this a very close to perfect effort. They sound comfortable doing what they’re doing. They’re not constrained and the music goes beyond any boundaries. It flows and, at the same time, explores uncharted territories.