JUGGERNAUT were a pure Texas Metal band. Aficionados of the matter will get a gleam in their eye upon hearing names such as HELSTAR, WATCHTOWER, MILITIA, S.A. SLAYER and, well, JUGGERNAUT. For the uninitiated this means: Texas Metal is mostly to be equalled with progressive music. And JUGGERNAUT fuddle from the very outset that the unexpecting listener will see his jaw visit his kneecaps.

Okay, it is not as bad as it may sound now. But you will need your time until you will get into the debut album “Baptism Under Fire“. But for that you will have something for a long time. The music really is not as complex as, for example, WATCHTOWER’s, but you neither can have some beers with it or relax with your hand. You definitely have to concentrate on the album.

Singer Harlan Glenn sounds a bit like Bobby “Blitz“ Ellsworth and the music, too, tends towards old OVERKILL, just a lot more complex. The band sounds best, when they fully step on the pedal as on “Cut Throat” or the whacked out “Burn tonight”: But the stomping “All Hallow’s Eve“ with its very succinct chorus enthuses right away. Not to forget the doomy “Purgatory Child”, being interrupted by short, hefty eruptions.

And as with all High Vaultage re-releases we get a lot of bonus songs, as the “Metal Massacre VII“ track “In The Blood Of Virgins“ or “Vengeance”, which had only been released on the “Trouble Within” album, with a different singer… (Online June 22, 2004)