A budget priced repackaging of the American Metallers two studio albums, ‘World Gone Mad’ and ‘Praise The Loud’, both of which were originally released in 1986. Much of the material here now sounds terribly dated, particularly on ‘World Gone Mad’ which also suffers from very poor, and at times ‘tinny’, production. There are lots of recycled Priest riffs in the background whilst Russell Jinkens warbles along and David Chastain solos away at seemingly every opportunity. Most of the lyrics would make Rob Halford cringe (as you can probably guess with titles such as ‘Hell on Earth’, ‘The Gates of Eternity’ and ‘Welcome to Damnation’) and it is only on ‘Destiny’ and the cover of ‘Communication Breakdown’ that CJSS really rise above the mire.  

‘Praise The Loud’, despite the naff title, is a definite improvement, and is a far more competent performance all around, the band clearly having learnt something from the experience of recording the debut album. Chastain achieves more by playing less and Jinkens is also much improved, although this can partly be attributed to the better production. The lyrics are still sub-standard but the title track, ‘Danger’ and ‘Metal Forever’ are all solid mid- 80’s Metal; although don’t expect to discover anything contemporary or influential as this is an album very much of its time. That said, there were a lot worse Metal bands around than CJSS back in 1986 and had they been able to keep the band as a going concern then they might have gone on to enjoy greater success.  

Ultimately, it did not work out for CJSS and they were unable to resolve their internal difficulties to record another album, Chastain preferring to instead concentrate on his other projects. Whilst neither album here has really aged well there are a few glimpses of what might have been.

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Track List

World Gone Man
Hell On Earth
No-Man's-Land
Communication Breakdown
World Gone Mad
Run To Another Day
The Gates Of Eternity
Destiny
Welcome To Damnation
Living In Exile

Praise The Loud
Out Of Control
Land Of The Free
Don't Play With Fire
Praise The Loud
Citizen Of Hell
Danger
Metal Forever
Thunder And Lightning
The Bargain

Line Up

David T. Chastain - Guitars
Russell Jinkens - Vocals
Mike Skimmerhorn - Bass
Les Sharp - Drums