JUNON / EX GENERAL LEE

Junon / ex General Lee biography
Active since 2020, Junon are a French atmospheric sludge metal group based in Béthune, formerly known as General Lee from 2000 to 2016. The current lineup consists of vocalist Arnaud Palmowski, guitarists Alex Renaux, Martin Catoire and Fabien Zwernemann, bassist Vincent Perdicaro and drummer Florian Urbaniak. Junon perform a brand of hardcore and post-rock-infused sludge metal, explicitly citing Neurosis, Cult of Luna, Deftones, Breach, Godspeed You! Black Emperor, Botch and Will Haven as main influences.

Taking their peculiar moniker from the car featured in "The Dukes of Hazzard", General Lee made their 2003 debut with The Sinister Menace EP before releasing four full-length albums and two splits with As We Bleed and Euglena on labels like Basement Apes Industries, HipHipHip and Play the Assassin. Following the towering post-metal approach of 2007's Hannibal ad Portas and 2010's Roads, General Lee introduced more post-hardcore, punk and noise rock tendencies in 2012's Raiders of the Lost Eye and 2015's Knives Out Everybody!, dialling back the experimental songwriting but not abandoning it completely. After years of touring and playing live, General Lee played their ostensibly final show at Lille's L'Aéronef in June 2016, entering an indefinite hiatus to renew their creative focus.

The longtime friends couldn't stay apart for long, and reappeared in late 2020 as Junon: a tribute to their past, namely the beloved first song they wrote as General Lee, itself the first track of The Sinister Menace. As with their predecessor band, Junon's introductory 2021 release, The Shadows Lengthen, was a four-track EP again mastered by Boss Hog Studio's Clément Decrock, General Lee's first drummer who has produced nearly all their music. Inspired by the work of Lovecraft and Poe and "the perpetual fight of the planet in the face of repeated attacks from its hosts," The Shadows Lengthen returned to the atmospheric sludge of General Lee's early oeuvre but with a new emphasis on clean vocals.

Junon will undoubtedly appeal to listeners of Asidefromaday, Envy, Cortez, Blindead, Overmars and Year of No Light.


- Gordy, October 2023