These are harsh days for our kids. Just watching tea bag-faced Toyah from Coronation Street stomp down from Weatherfield to the delights of Walthamstow proves that not all nippers are revelling in a fun-filled teenage rampage like those Symposium scamps. Take The Junket: three rum tykes straight, uh, outta Kettering, they are serious-looking sorts with the meanest of humorous streaks: "This is for anyone who's ever thought of shagging their sister," announces unfeasibly chirpy bassist Stevie, as The Junket jumpstart 'Brother Sister'.
Allow them their sordid indulgences. For a start Kettering is damned strange; for a middle they have a drummer called - as far as we can ascertain - Reu; and for a grand finale, word on the street has it that The Junket are the bastard offspring of some almost certainly illegal sexual dalliance betwixt Placebo and The Pecadiloes, and for once the word on the street is not wrong.
It's not so much the fact that singer Rick is the spit of Stefan Olsdal, although that helps. Nope, it's more in the way The Junket combine brittle rhythms with bruised guitar bursts, how they bring together the clinical and the bleakly comical to sometimes rousing effect. With only one release thus far - a contribution to the Skotch For Breakfast 'zine EP - these are obviously early days and many creepy-crawly skins will be shed along the way. But for now The Junket are both wired and weird for sound. Yes they are.
Simon Williams
14 January 1999
Stamina
(Deceptive)
Brian Molko has a lot to answer for. From blokes sporting nail varnish to the endless stream of more brazen Placebo-alikes, Brian's proved his own worth only for others to ram it down our throats.
Initial indications are that new Deceptive signings The Junket have too been touched by the hand of Molko. There's the label link (Deceptive was also once home to Placebo), the angular edginess of all seven tracks here and the buzzing, fuzzing guitars that viciously puncture songs like opener 'Punk Micky'.
But, thankfully, the Kettering trio have far more ideas, individuality and talent of their own to offer. This debut mini-album is a nasty, blistering shock of acerbic punk-pop, rougher and more confident than anything Placebo have offered, with singer Rick Flynn snarling and growling his way through massive spiky choruses. On 'The Engine Man' this bears a startling and somewhat unfortunate resemblance to a punked-up Spacehog, but elsewhere it's a bitter, bristling concoction of Idlewild and The Pecadiloes.
With their prickly, scrambled guitars and Rick's violent, wailing vocals, though, 'Sentimental' and 'You're The Same' sound like a cat-fight between Scarfo and Mansun, while the brittle harmonies and sharp sentiments of 'Everybody's Got It Wrong' have a gentler bite.
It's early days, but The Junket's brutal pop is already perfectly formed and dangerous.
7/10
Siobhan Grogan
20 february 1999
You're The Same
(Deceptive)
Small-town torment put to good use for once, as Kettering's The Junket parade a fireball of rasping guitars, succinct tunesmithery and sneakily accomplished dynamics. There's a knack for brittle intensity and being ear-scorchingly loud without being mind-numbingly prosaic on both 'You're The Same' and 'Cargo'. Like a pithier, more rough-cut Idlewild, through avoiding being flash The Junket craft their own honest, unkempt form of flash. Their home town can be proud of them, if not of much else.
Andy Crysell
