The Goddess of Doom: Trouble

Like Saint Vitus, Trouble was one of the first American Doom Metal bands, having released their first album in 1984. From allmusic's bio page:

Trouble's unorthodox career path began to unfold in 1979, and after years of painstaking rehearsals, club gigs, and tooling with their sound, vocalist Eric Wagner, guitarists Bruce Franklin and Rick Wartell, bassist Sean McAllister, and drummer Jeff Olson came to the attention of Metal Blade Records, which issued their surprisingly mature eponymous debut in 1984. Also referred to in years to come as Psalm 9 -- because of its namesake-explaining quotation from scripture: "The Lord will be a refuge for the oppressed; a refuge in times of trouble" -- the album revealed not only the quintet's strong ties to heavy metal's '70s aesthetics, but also their Christian beliefs (almost unheard of in the metal world), which quickly earned them the additional label of "white metal." However, neither this, nor "doom," nor any other label mattered as much as Trouble's innate songwriting talents, which may have been too unfashionable to gain mass popularity during the golden era of thrash and pop-metal, but fueled another impressive (and even more depressing) outing in 1985's The Skull.

In addition to being active at the doom genre's infancy, Trouble gets some attention for its unapologetically pro-Christian lyrics. While that may be a turn-off for some, the lyrics are rarely impede appreciation of Trouble's stellar musicianship or its backpack of enjoyable riffs. If anything, their Christian outlook informs the band's renowned grim atmosphere with a kind of gargoyle-like quality (gargoyles, of course, once functioned as guardians of cathedrals and other sacred places before becoming a fixture of your mother-in-law's gazebo): one combats evil with something equally vicious. Eric Wagner's voice has a bit of an odd edge to it, but it's melodic when it needs to be and the range is adequate for the demonic spectrum they cover.

1984 - Psalm 9
Trouble's debut album has since come to be regarded as one of the pillars of the Doom Metal genre and is still widely considered their best work (for those of you new to the genre, unsurpassed debut albums occur with surprising regularity). From the moment "The Tempter" starts playing, you know what you're getting: massive, downtuned riffs, impossibly bleak atmosphere, and a bunch of biblical allusions that will likely be lost on your average teenage headbanger. Had they actually bothered to read the lyrics, they probably would have picked up on the whole "redemption" angle that's supposed to counter-balance the forlorn music...but who the hell listens to Doom for redemption anyway? Let me play "Assassin" one more time and enjoy some excellent goddman riffs.

Of their earlier albums (you will understand the bifurcation soon), Psalm 9 is their most consistent and probably still their best.

http://www.mediafire.com/?z8c5rtlosheiphr

1985 - The Skull

Consult the definition of "sophomore slump" to get a pretty good idea about Trouble's second album. Generally more of the same, slightly less consistent. That's not to say we don't have some awesome tracks here--the 11-minute "The Wish" is our first verifiable "doom epic" and by itself warrants checking the album out, while "The Truth Is, What Is" follows with an infectious chugging verse riff that could very well epitomize the sound of early Trouble. A worthy, if not terribly imaginative follow-up to Psalm 9 still means a quality album.

http://www.mediafire.com/?ounjfc4lcjsa580

1987 - Run to the Light

Trouble's third album again goes for a vintage doom sound with about the same consistency as its predecessor. The difference this time is that the album sounds positively thrashy at times, showing that Trouble was either looking to keep up with the times or simply lacked Wino's stomach for enduring jeers about being antiquated. By no means a bad album, although I can't say I spin it terribly often.

http://www.mediafire.com/?c4j0jej8z1qu30j

1990 - Trouble

I've never been a fan of bands releasing self-titled albums midway through their career. It usually comes across as a cheap PR stunt to announce that a band has "reinvented" itself, which either means it's radically changed its style (usually by means of taking their sound and mainstreaming the hell out of it) or that it's going to try to "go back to the feel of the first album" and repeat the debut album's success with band members a decade older. Either way, it generally results in a mediocre album. Trouble's self-titled marked the end of their original, Traditional Doom sound (one of the very genres they helped to create) in favor of a faster, groovier sound heavily resembling what we'd now call Stoner Metal (beating out Kyuss's Blues for the Red Sun by two years and Sleep's Holy Mountain by three). For their effort the album is largely successful at sounding like the band has been revitalized and has carved out its own niche, rather than sticking to the "darker and heavier" Sabbath-worship of their doom peers. A good album in its own right, although the fact that they're exploring new territory is made somewhat obvious by later albums, which sound noticeably more mature by comparison.

http://www.mediafire.com/?oayydm644p947c3

1992 - Manic Frustration

Probably my favorite Trouble album after Psalm 9. They've fully embraced the psychedelic aspects of their sound by this point (just look at the cover art), they sound confident, and they sound energetic. Other than the weak ballad "Rain", there's hardly a bad track on here.

http://www.mediafire.com/?vaolk37mpwhcy74

1995 - Plastic Green Head

Another quality release from the Stoner-Doom era of Trouble. Once you've resigned yourself to the fact that you're never getting another Psalm 9, there's alot to enjoy here. For one thing, the preachy lyrical aspect of Christian Doom Trouble has receded in favor of the upbeat good-time-headbangin' vibe stereotypical of most stoner metal. My guess? Sometime between 1987 and 1990 Eric Wagner discovered acid. Whether this changed his relationship with the Almighty I don't know, but evidently Wagner felt less of a need to proselytize that he once did. I'm not complaining.

http://www.mediafire.com/?vaolk37mpwhcy74

2005 - Demos & Rarities

Just a small compilation of early demos and whatnot. Fans of early Trouble should enjoy it.

http://www.mediafire.com/?lrca14m07084fq5

2007 - Simple Mind Collection

Well, the good times had to come to an end sometime. After going on hiatus from 1996-2002, Trouble surfaced again, taking another five years to produce a new album. The result is, well...bleh. Let's just say that Reverend Bizarre hadn't heard this yet when Trouble was chosen for inclusion in "The Goddesss of Doom". Neither stoner nor doom anymore, Simple Mind Collection has a very "modern" sound to it in all of the worst ways, which seems inherently antithetical to all Doom is supposed to be. In addition, the songs just sound completely phoned-in. That the album took so long to come out seems indicative that perhaps the creative juices weren't flowing as readily as they might have wanted, and the wholly bland level of songwriting supports this suspicion. It's a horrible way for such a great band to go out, and with Eric Wagner no longer with Trouble, it may remain this way for some time.