Nothing cheesy about Jungol

By JOHN BENSON

entertainment@vindy.com

At some point early on in a recent conversation with Atlanta-based rock act Jungol, the conversation strays into the fact bassist-singer Josh Yoder and his twin brother Graham were raised as kids outside of Canton near Amish country.

Despite the fact that their surname is the Smith of the Amish, Yoder isn’t Amish; however, the joke is made that Jungol actually started out as Mennonite rock. That’s seemingly with lots of beards, cheese and rocking chairs.

“We actually had some Amish relatives, but what’s funny actually is it’s not from my mom’s side,” said Yoder, calling from Georgia. “It’s from my dad’s side, which is interesting. And no, very much not Mennonite rock.”

Formed in the middle of the ’00s, Jungol — Yoder, Graham Yoder (guitar, vocals, sampler) and Jason Monseur (drums, percussion) – is now supporting its most recent release “Over the Sun and Under the Radar.” The band’s third studio effort features a stylistic digression that the group hinted about on its last EP, “Places.”

“We’ve been into electronic music for a while, and we kind of gradually started doing more of it,” Yoder said. “It’s not like straight-up dance, electronic music really, it’s more so adding textures and stuff. We’re sort of a dance-y band in certain aspects. We’re more experimental, weird pop music these days. I play bass and sing but on the new album I play bass on less than half of the songs and play mostly nasty, dirty synth.”

He added, “But we are a rock band. Some of the reviews have us as like Radiohead-meets-Mars Volta. I guess it’s something like that. There’s definitely an aspect to our music that gets a little wild at times. We try to put the song first with all of our experimentations.”

Among the two standout tracks on Jungol’s new CD are the upbeat “Two People” and “Fast Asleep,” both of which Yoder said fans attending the band’s Youngstown debut Thursday at the Lemon Grove can look forward to hearing. As for the outfit’s upcoming visit to Mahoning County, the singer said that’s due to the efforts of local group The Zou, which Jungol befriended a few years ago at a Kent show.

Let’s hope Yoder’s experience returning to Northeast Ohio is different from his memories of attending the annual Twins Day Celebration in Twinsburg.

“We went to the twins convention when we were really young,” Yoder said. “We were forced to go but it freaked my parents out too much. They were like, ‘OK, we’re not going to this again. It’s a little bit too much.’”