The Martyrdom of a Catastrophist (Remastered) [Remastered]

Immanuel Velikovsky was a Russian-born Jewish scientist who believed that long ago Earth had suffered several near-catastrophic collisions with Venus and Mars. His alternate vision of the universe, which he laid out in the controversial 1950 bestseller Worlds In Collision, reads suspiciously like the plot to Stargate: ancient mythology, astrology, and astrophysics woven together into the kind of vividly apocalyptic swirl that attracts cults of believers. Velikovsky's theories, unfortunately for him, were debunked by every reputable physicist of the era.

It's easy to see the appeal this doomed, charismatic fringe figure might have for a melodramatic goth-rock band. This is where Junius comes in: their second full-length is a loose concept album about Velikovsky's life and trials. He is the "catastrophist" of the title, and a recording of his thickly accented voice, straight out of mad-scientist Central Casting, graces the album's opening. Here Junius treat Velikovsky not unlike how metal bands behold Aleister Crowley: a compelling Faustian figure, a man who was punished by society for his forays into forbidden realms of knowledge.

Junius are not a metal band, however. In spirit and sound, the Boston quartet are closest to darkwave bands of the 1980s, a kinship that only begins with lead singer and guitarist Joseph E Martinez's pitch-perfect Robert Smith wail. Like the bands they resemble (Tears for Fears, the Cure, and Depeche Mode, primarily), Junius have a knack for translating weepy melodrama into anthemic choruses. Almost every song makes its careful way through a maze of subsections, but this maneuvering is often hidden behind an instantly memorable hook, which tends to make the record's esoteric conceit melt away instantly. "We are so curious," Martinez howls on "Ten-Year Librarian", a song that is ostensibly about Velikovsky staying up endless nights to rewrite his life-changing thesis, but a line that probably resonates just as powerfully with sexually repressed teenagers.

The sound of the record is similarly stadium-ready. The reverb is cranked to cavernous levels, so that every isolated sound-- the glimmering Interpol-style guitar leads, the hi-hat cymbal washes, the unison "whoa-oh-oh" vocals-- spirals endlessly upward into a starlit sky. "The Antedeluvian Fire" has tinkling chimes doubling its murmuring, arpeggiated guitars, while waves of Mellotron well up in the background of "Ten-Year Librarian". As you would expect from such an 80s-rooted album, there are rich bands of synthesizers here too, and they shimmer darkly from every corner of the mix. Taken as a whole (as it demands to be), Catastrophist is a rich, immersive experience, a bleak jewel of a record that takes obsession as its theme and rewards it in equal measure.