Junior's exquisite tease
The trio returns with "Cut My Hair," and there's more music on the way.
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Last week, the heavy gray clouds of my inbox briefly parted, and a beam of sunlight shone through. A message had arrived from the Montana folk-rock trio Junior, and it bore terrific news.
Four years after the release of their terrific debut, Warm Buildings (and following a triumphant battle with cancer), the group will return to Oregon in late March to record their sophomore album. And in advance of the recording session, Junior will play a pair of hometown shows in Butte and Missoula to give fans a hearty dose of the new material.
Junior’s announcement had some additional juice up its sleeve: a brand-new song called “Cut My Hair.” The email describes the track, recorded in a Butte living room, as a mere demo. But to my ear, it sounds lush and refined. “Cut My Hair” encapsulates the group’s greatest strengths: stellar three-part harmonies, poignant, heart-worn lyrics and inventive arrangements.
While Junior’s new song ain’t the first to imbue haircuts with substantial emotional heft, its lead vocalist (and guitarist, and drummer) Hermina Jean frames the act in a singularly bittersweet context: in the struggle to get past a toxic relationship, she seems to be saying, cutting your hair obviously won’t solve all your problems. But sometimes you just need to do something to feel like you’re on a path towards feeling better. “Cut my hair / I want to feel a little different now / cut my hair / doesn’t matter how,” she sings in the ear-worm chorus.
The song’s arrangement similarly walks a line between sunlight and heartbreak. Jenny Lynn’s viola punctuates the chorus, rising in elegant ribbons, and the trio’s exceptional vocal harmonies add extra muscle. Guest musician Eric Heywood—a collaborator of artists like Son Volt and Ray LaMontagne—fills out the song with psychedelic swells of pedal steel that sometimes feel like a call and response with Hermina’s vocals.
Taken as a whole, “Cut My Hair” is a testament to Junior’s ongoing collaborative spirit, open-hearted songwriting and raw talent, and I can’t wait to hear what comes next.
Junior plays Butte’s Carpenter’s Union Hall with Izaak Opatz on Saturday, March 8, and Missoula FreeCycles with Riddy Arman on Sunday, March 9.