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This feature is part of a new Scene Report on Dunedin. Check out the series here.
Sex, Socialism, Science and Something Else — don’t threaten me with a good time.
That’s the alliterative title of the debut release by fledgling Dunedin band U-NO JUNO, who, when I conducted myriad interviews for our new Dunedin series, came highly recommended.
“U-NO JUNO and Dale Kerrigan… I think they’re probably the two best bands in the country right now,” Tane Cotton of post-punk outfit Sivle Talk, gushed, and I don’t think it’s as hyperbolic a statement as it might first seem.
Listening to Sex, Socialism, Science and Something Else feels like discovering the next big thing before the rest of the country does.
U-NO JUNO are Stefan, Ramona, and Jack, three musicians entrenched in Ōtepoti’s current tight-knit music community. In typical Dunedin fashion, they lend their talent to other bands and projects — Stefan, for example, also plays in The Pink Opaque — but the trio really seem to have landed on a formidable sound together.
It’s a sound that has noise-punk as its sturdy base but throughout their debut release, which is actually an EP but feels like an album in its cohesion and impact, they dip into shoegaze, alternative rock, and lots of post-hardcore.
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“Yeah, we like making noise,” they told me succinctly over the phone from Dunedin, going on to list their biggest inspirations.
Like most of this current crop of exciting Dunedin bands, ’90s rock is the most obvious musical touchstone (they specifically mention Washington state’s seminal post-hardcore trio Unwound), but they are also inspired by a slew of fellow Aotearoa acts: Die! Die! Die!, The Mint Chicks, and the aforementioned Dale Kerrigan, who they cite as their “favourite band.”
Sex, Socialism, Science and Something Else sounds like an undiscovered ’90s gem you’d accidentally happen upon on Discogs.
The young trio are already impressively adept at the basics of that decade’s punk and post-hardcore, even within just the opening track: “Bread and Wine” is backed by an ear-splitting wall of noise, underpinned by fuzzed-out riffs, and flits between fast and wild playing and slowed-down tempos. They interchange vocals well, knowing whether a line calls for Stefan’s anguished howls or Ramona’s quieter delivery.
The pair switch lead vocals (and gang up to rousing effect at other junctures) best on standout track “Sick of Home”, a vigorous rock anthem with its titular brooding choral refrain.
U-NO JUNO have mostly been playing shows in their hometown, but their ‘Sick of Home Tour’ took them around the country in January of this year, even all the way to Auckland’s 605. With the band planning to record a new record early next year, hopefully it’s not too long before other towns and cities get to hear their wall of noise up close again.
U-NO JUNO’s Sex, Socialism, Science and Something Else is out now.
