Stereo Six: Junius Gather Together Some of Their All-Time Favourite Albums

It was a welcome occurrence last week with the release of the new Junius album Sotera. It was a particularly savoury moment as this was the post-metallers’ first full-length album in nearly a decade. Released via Prosthetic Records, Sotera has been a long time coming since the release of 2017’s Eternal Rituals for the Accretion of Light. Led by Joseph E. Martinez and Dana Filloon, the duo has referred to the new album as a rebirth for the band. They put their heart and soul into this album, featuring the group’s distinctive brand of ambient shoegaze metal. It requires a focused listening experience as it is both expansive and deep. Sotera focuses on the restoration of balance through worship of the divine feminine. The word sotera is the feminine form of saviour or protector in Greek.

Musically and thematically, the album has been hashed out exactly the way the band intended. They took their time writing it and wanted it to be their most in-depth effort yet. For over 20 years, the Boston-based Junius has stretched and reshaped their sound, redefining the possibilities of heavy music. They are so much more than just a metal band firing away down-tuned riffs at you. Their music touches on a wide palette of textures, detours, and emotional tones. You might refer to Junius as a post-metal band. They do heavy music, but it’s not just meant as a means of expressing aggression. It’s more about expression and balancing weight with emotional lift.

The members of Junius join us today for a Stereo Six feature to share with us six records that were influential in the writing of Sotera.

Junius ‘Sotera’ album artwork

1. Bedhead – WhatFunLifeWas (1994, Trance Syndicate)

Joseph E. Martinez (vocals, guitar): “I lucked out with this band because my uncle was the drummer. Otherwise, I’m not sure I ever would have discovered them. I remember them rehearsing in the garage at my grandparents’ house when I was 11 or 12 years old. I’d wander in and watch, and they would occasionally ask me to play bongos or some other instrument, but I was way too shy. They had a violin player in the early days. I also remember them trying to come up with a band name. Maybe they were joking, but I distinctly remember ‘Orange Schubert’ and something ridiculous like ‘A Mic, Two Jews, and a Mexican’ being thrown around. Thankfully, they landed on Bedhead.

“I was also lucky enough to spend a few hours in the studio with them. I remember my uncle experimenting with a sizzler on his ride cymbal and some piano/organ being recorded by (singer and guitarist) Matt (Kadane). At the time, when WhatFunLifeWas came out, I didn’t get it. It didn’t sound like Alice in Chains or Bell Biv DeVoe, so to my young ears it felt slow and boring. That didn’t stop me from proudly wearing a Bedhead shirt around my Texas middle school.

“A few years later, while on a family road trip through the vast Arizona desert, I was listening to WhatFunLifeWas, and something clicked. The otherworldly landscape combined with the slow builds, pacing, and emotional crescendos of this album split my chest wide open. Suddenly, I understood it. It brought me to tears. Its beauty changed me. That realization became one of the guiding lights behind Junius. I’ve spent much of my life chasing that feeling.”

2. Failure – Fantastic Planet (1996, Slash, Warner Bros.)

Martinez: “This is probably the single biggest influence on the formation of the Junius sound. Fantastic Planet is a perfect record. More than anything, it created a world that I lived in nightly for nearly five years.

“After the death of my father, this was one of the places I escaped to. I still remember listening to the nightly news on WAAF in Boston when they premiered ‘Stuck On You.’ And I was immediately hooked. I recorded it off the radio onto a cassette tape so I could listen to it on my way to high school every morning.

“When the full album was released, it challenged me in ways I wasn’t prepared for. As an early musician, I couldn’t fully grasp what was happening. The arrangements felt incredibly sophisticated, yet there were still these unforgettable hooks and massive dynamic shifts. It was overwhelming in the best possible way.

“Fantastic Planet taught me that I don’t just love songs, I love albums. The songs themselves are incredible, but what makes Fantastic Planet special is how they work together to create something larger than the individual parts. It feels like a fully realized place that you can step into and inhabit.

“That idea became a foundational principle for Junius. Every record should create its own world. Each one should have its own atmosphere, its own rules, its own emotional landscape. Fantastic Planet showed me that an album can be more than just a collection of songs.”

3. Hot Water Music – Finding the Rhythms (1996, No Idea Records)

Dana Filloon (Drums): “I come from the Florida punk scene. Hot Water Music has been a huge part of my life, and George Rebelo has been a huge influence on me as a musician since my early teen years. George’s playing has always inspired me because he pushes beyond the limits of punk to bring a creative, tribal feel that gives every song an undeniable sense of momentum and intensity. Over the years, I’ve found myself inspired by his sense of musicality.”

4. Hum – Downward is Heavenward (1998, RCA)

Martinez: “I first heard ‘Stars’ on the radio and thought it was a great song, but Downward Is Heavenward was the record that influenced me. A friend’s older brother was blasting it in his car one day, and I was completely floored by how huge it sounded. It felt alien in the best possible way, angular, atmospheric, and massive, with a baritone vocal style that was in the neighbourhood of Joy Division. I was all in.

“By that point, I had been playing guitar for a few years, and this album sent me down a rabbit hole. I spent countless hours trying to figure out those strange, beautiful chords. To this day, I still refer to seventh chords as ‘Hum chords.’

“We met with Matt Talbott at his studio while on tour around 2006/2007 to see if he’d be interested in recording The Martyrdom of a Catastrophist. He told us he’d be into it, but he also encouraged us to take advantage of an opportunity we had to record at Henson Recording Studios in Los Angeles instead. It was selfless advice, and he was absolutely right.

“One random memory that has stuck with me all these years: Matt was on the phone with his wife while we were there, and he would call her ‘dude’ in casual conversation. We all laughed about it afterward and agreed… that was exactly the kind of relationship we hoped to have someday.

“A few years later, we had the honour of covering ‘Firehead’ for a Hum tribute release. I was putting it together while we were out on tour, so it was a bit of a scramble, but I think it came out pretty well considering the quick turnaround time.

“And of course, Bryan St. Pere was one of the greatest drummers of all time. RIP.”

5. Deftones – Deftones (2003, Maverick)

Filloon: “I’ve always loved the way Abe (Cunningham) writes as a melody and vibe maker in Deftones. Abe’s approach helped shape how I think about drumming in Junius.

“Movement, tension, and atmosphere while maintaining a strong backbone that makes heads bob. He still leaves space for the music to breathe. I love that, and it inspires me to be more creative even after all these years.”

6. My Bloody Valentine – Loveless (1991, Creation, Sire, Warner Bros.)

Martinez: “My uncle, the one in Bedhead, gave me a stack of CDs to check out, and buried in that pile was Loveless. It just came out the year before, I believe. He also told me the album had nearly bankrupted the label. I later learned that the story may have been exaggerated, but it certainly added to the mythology surrounding the record.

“What struck me most was how immediately I connected with it at around 12 years old. A lot of the music that would later become important to me took time to unravel, but Loveless clicked right away. It was probably the first truly ‘indie’ record that I instantly loved. I didn’t need multiple listens to understand it. I got it immediately. Looking back, those sonic textures probably helped prepare me for records like Fantastic Planet and Downward Is Heavenward.

“The combination of beauty, melody, noise, and experimentation was unlike anything I had heard before. The wall of sound, the pitch-bending guitars, the alien texture, it was dreamy, catchy, and fucking badass.

“Its influence found its way into Junius almost immediately. On our first EP, there was a song called ‘Forcing Out the Silence,’ and I originally wrote a big, swirling My Bloody Valentine-inspired ending built around those classic bending half-step chord movements. I thought it sounded incredible, but our guitar player at the time preferred a simpler approach, so I avoided the argument, and the part never made it onto the recording. I still think about how good that ending could have been.

“A little of that influence survived elsewhere. The bridge in ‘Blood Is Bright’ is definitely a small nod to Loveless. Honestly, if I can find a way to sneak a little My Bloody Valentine into a song, I’ll do it.

“Actually, this reminds me, in addition to all the CDs I received, of one of the very first tapes my uncle ever gave me: Hatful of Hollow by The Smiths. I know we were only supposed to list six albums, but for anyone curious where I stole my vocal style from, the answer is probably hiding somewhere in the overlap between these records and the ones already listed.”

None of this will be particularly surprising:

The Doors – The Doors
The Smiths – Hatful of Hollow
Joy Division – Unknown Pleasures
The Cure – Disintegration
Depeche Mode – Violator