Review Summary: June Paik stands as one of my favorite emo albums. It's dismal, beautiful, ugly, tense, all amazing attributes to this album's wonderful, abeit structured sound.
In life there are many moments of despair. Things occur and we seem to have no control over what profoundly affects us. But no matter what, no matter the hurdles, we continrue to survive.
June Paik is that despair; that struggle with holding on for dear life we all experience. It's a bumpy ride, and
June Paik is in the ****in' passenger seat.
Structurally,
June Paik is your typical and exemplary emo album. Up and down she groans, beginning with a sorrowful guitar lead in "Und Wieder" only to erupt into furious bombast, and then right back to nothing but a mournful guitar. The song continues in this ebb and flow fashion with a few sinister riffs thrown in, until a somewhat post-rockesque finish keeps it from boiling over to create a superlative sense of tension. "Aleska" begins roughly in the same fashion and continues on its treacherous path. Up to this point you may have noticed how premium the guitar is on
June Paik but it rarely ever ceases to steal the show in a wonderful way. Guitarist Sebastion drenches the songs in meloncholic guitar passages and tight, controlled chaos. He also uses tremolo picking well during these flashes of chaos to create more sense of speed and anguish. Truth be told,
June Paik doesn't differentiate from this formula (albeit a winning one), though the constant pounding of despair makes this an incredible and draining experience.
There is one song that is worth noting individually. "Grobes Rund" is incredible on its own without the mammoth album backing it, and stands as the best song overall. A rather dark intro which produces the muffled sound of a child playing, showing the innocence of childhood, explodes with a bit more bite this time around. It's clear June Paik are strict in their songwriting but "Grobes Rund" is the best represntation of the albums sound.
June Paik stands as one of my favorite emo albums. It's dismal, beautiful, ugly, tense, all amazing attributes to this album's wonderful, abeit structured sound. The despair and resentment captured is a reminder of the life we all lead sometimes: one of misery.
