I read a review of Juno’s first album, This Is The Way It Goes and Goes and Goes, which described the band as believing that the best way to get from point A to point B isn’t a straight line. That’s about as apt a description of Juno as you can get, and it holds true for A Future Lived In Past Tense. This one’s like an atmospheric journey, riding a wave of sound as it glides across the planet’s surface. First the sea, then the tundra, then we're in a rolling meadow somewhere, and the voyage goes and goes and goes...not unlike the Energizer Bunny™. Clocking in at 70+ minutes, A Future Lived In Past Tense is not for the weary traveler.

I suppose that at some point, Juno was lumped into the whole emo-core scene. On A Future..., they drop the “core” genre suffix, choosing instead to focus on long moody passages, drones, echoes, reverbs, dark corners and deserted hallways. They occassionally bust out with some high energy, as in "You Are The Beautiful Conductor of This Orchestra". In fact, the end of that song could have been lifted directly from a ...And You Will Know Us By the Trail of Dead LP. The album opener, "A Thousand Motors Pressed Upon the Heart", has strains of the post-rock mathy stuff that I love so much. But for the most part, A Future... is a decidedly lush emo-pop album.

Despite the overly pretentious song titles (e.g. "The Trail Of Your Blood In the Snow" and "Things Gone and Things Still Here [We'll Need the Machine Guns By Next March]"), I’m actually impressed with Juno. This is a quality disk.