Trama!

Changes of genre for a band are not uncommon. Just to use one example, Behemoth changed from black metal to death metal, and this far into their career, people pick and choose what they like from both eras, or, like me, enjoy both eras. I guess there comes a time in a band’s career where change is not only beneficial, but necessary. And with this in mind, I’m still trying to figure out where Juggernaut falls. Their first album …Where Mountains Walk was more of a poorer man’s Cult of Luna/Isis, personally, but it was still a good listen and I was interested to see where they would improve on that sound. This album Trama! abandons that style so completely that I’m surprised they continued with the band name.

“Via Del Serpente 13, Ore 20” is some sort of jazz/blues introduction, which may already have long-time listeners scratching their heads. “Pietra Grezza” then shows the swarm of different ideas they have. With a lighter, swing middle sandwiched by heavier moments, particularly towards the end, I get the feeling that there are a lot of ideas Juggernaut want to deploy, but don’t know how to confine it to certain songs. And that’s the general feeling I get towards Trama! as a whole. A lot of ideas kind of mish-mashed together to create these seven different pieces.

Not to say that any of this is amateurish, though – on the contrary, all the members work their way around their instruments quite well. The drumming is particularly impressive, with the jazz-like flams and ghost notes and accents all striking and deliberate. There’s nothing in the way of blast beats and the metal drumming is mostly seen in the more rockier sections, but overall the drumming is superb. Riffs aren’t always completely engaging, but I do enjoy the majority of the riffs on offer. The issue there comes from memorability, as there are a lot of ideas thrown at the listener. It’s difficult to pinpoint any certain riff from another once all is finished. However, prepare to be impressed by the range of riffs on offer, whether they be heavier, pummelling moments, or the lighter, avant-garde sections. The bass guitar is easily distinguishable from the rest, which I particularly like about this sort of music, so aficionados there will get a good kick out of this, and the bass riffs are usually simple but effective.

One frustrating thing about this album is the painful underuse of the exotic instruments. Utilised throughout the album are a whistle (definitely heard on “Pietra Grezza”), glockenspiel, shakers, vibraslap (definitely heard on “Egregoro”), and others. They are there on every song and I would’ve been far more impressed had these unusual instruments been utilised a little more. Hell, I had to Google what a marranzanu was. If there are future albums, some more obvious air time for these instruments would be good, but I do like that they’re subtle and it takes more than one listen to pick them out. It goes give the music a new dimension they wouldn’t have had on …Where Mountains Walk.

And that’s where I kind of feel the bizarre nature of Trama!. I get the feeling that Juggernaut doesn’t know what it wants to do anymore, as evidenced no doubt by their cover art, so they tried something so completely out of the box and so different to their debut to try and get a grounding of the direction they want to go in. I do like this new direction, even if the songs are occasionally haphazard in their delivery. The elimination of vocals and the addition of unorthodox instruments gives the band more room to breathe and experiment in their music, but some more coherence next time around wouldn’t go astray. For now, though, Trama! is worth a listen for the more curious and adventurous out there. The drumming in particular is quite remarkable, so this could be useful for the drummers out there. Don’t expect a lot of actual metal in here, but the variety of other genres and instruments alone is enough to be satisfied with the material.