Description

2019 re-issue on black vinyl with lyric insert and poster

Texas shock rockers Juggernaut underwent some line-up changes after their debut album. The group replaced Glenn with former San Antonio Slayer singer Steve Cooper, but their challenging style once again proved to inaccessible for most listeners, and led to Juggernaut’s imminent demise. On the sophomore, Trouble Within, the band had gone the extra mile to give more freedom to their less ordinary visions, and the effort clearly shows as the opening “Without Warning” is an imposing bass-driven marvel recalling the debut with the faster-paced escapades, the couple of more complex guitar pirouettes hinting at the more engaging direction taken. “Vengeance” is a choppy power metal cut with echoes of Fates Warning and early Queensryche, and “Russian Roulette” is a more aggressive shredder with dramatic stomps and hard thrashing rhythms, the bass duelling with the sparse lead guitar showings. “The Calm Before” is a short peaceful atmospheric instrumental, probably the calm before the “Swarm” which is the next piece, a heavy brooding pounder which undermines the musicians’ skills as nothing really eventful occurs through its nearly 7-min the brooding doomy “idyll” solely broken by the stylish hectic ending. The title-track is where the singer truly shines whose high-strung very emotional clean timbre acquires glass-shattering proportions for a while; music-wise this is progressive power metal with more than the usual twists and turns, kind of predating the elaborate exploits on Helstar’s “Nosferatu”, but this is less exuberantly constructed. “Weeping in Fire” is a jumpy technicaller with more pronounced leads and a jarring rhythm-section which may have impressed the Watchtower guys where the drummer Bob Jarzombek’s brother Rob was, and still is, taking care of the bass duties at the time. “Onslaught of the Hordes” carries on in the same vein the guys experimenting with bouncier riffs and more intricate fretwork, with a memorable chorus admirably pulled off by the singer, the bass support traditionally strong and vociferous. All the way to “The Pirate’s Blade”, a more subdued pounder sustained in a somewhat downbeat mid-pace. Trouble Within would satisfy a larger gamut of fans although some will be a bit confused by the frequent shift in focus, from epic to progressive to technical to atmospherically melodic and vice versa. There’s nothing wrong in variety, especially when it comes to music and women, but in this case this has been achieved as an aftermath from too many scattered ideas and uncertainty as to which path to be taken, not so much from the lack of musical skills cause those are amply displayed all over.

Track list:
1. Without Warning
2. Vengeance
3. Russian Roulette
4. The Calm Before
5. The Swarm
6. Trouble Within
7. Weeping In Fire
8. Onslaught Of The Hordes
9. The Pirates Blade
10. Stellear Rubeae