TROUBLE: PLASTIC GREEN HEAD

Ok. I've been trying to complete my Trouble collection for a long. long time now. Seems like all of their long lost recordings from the late 1980's on are finally back in print. SIMPLE MIND CONDITION, PLASTIC GREEN HEAD, MANIC FRUSTRATION, and TROUBLE. I'm working on getting all of these long lost out of print gems. I just purchased PLASTIC GREEN HEAD (1996) last night and let me tell you, it blew me away.

PLASTIC GREEN HEAD has been long out of print and impossible to find for over a decade. I never even got a chance to hear this album when it originally came out. It was supposed to be a solid follow up to their previous release MANIC FRUSTRATION. I never found it anywhere. It appeared and disappeared that fast. So today, after more than ten years waiting, I'm lucky enough to have my hands on this album and I'm anxious to deliver a review.

PLASTIC GREEN HEAD comes off as a bit more sedate and unsettling Trouble album. It has the vibe of having taken one too many trips....that feeling of being scared to put one foot back into reality. It also conveys a sort of dry, frayed nerve endings, burnt out vibe that can be a bit unnerving but really works to this album's advantage.

There are really two styles of music on this album. The first is a detatched, burnt out, heavy as hell doom....Trouble's riffs have never been so vicious yet so subtle. Eric Wagner's vocals sound a bit distanced and at the same time more painful, but that only adds to the strength of the album. The riffs are incredible..the best of Trouble's career so far. Check out" Plastic Green Head" and "Long Shadows Fall".

The second style that Trouble puts forth on PLASTIC GREEN HEAD is one they had been attempting to perfect on their two previous releases TROUBLE and MANIC FRUSTRATION. The crushing, melodic, psychedelic doom ballad...a heavy slab of depression featuring the bleakest harmonies of THE BEATLES and the dirge-like qualities of the works of DONOVAN comibined into one. Really just heavy 1960's melodic psychedelic doom. They have perfected that sound on this release. Listen to "REQUIEM"...and marvel at their version of THE MONKEES' "PORPOISE SONG"....this has got to be one of the gloomiest psych rock songs ever recorded. There is also a Beatles song on here, "TOMORROW NEVER KNOWS". One thing I really noticed here: There is a lack of the Christian overtones that one has grown to expect from Trouble. It is as if the band had descended into a downward, drug-induced spiral....and I can't complain one bit. This would be their last album until about ten years later when they re-grouped and recorded SIMPLE MIND CONDITION.

All in all, PLASTIC GREEN HEAD is an excellent, crushing, TROUBLE album. It is a bit dry, but if you can get over that fact, this is a solid release, worthy to be in the collection of any self-respecting fan of all things retro and doom.

TROUBLE

Ok. I know I've written a lot about these guys on this blog but bear with me. Trouble's self-titled 1989 release is the first album I ever heard of theirs. I was in tenth grade, and it really made an impression on me. I was just starting to get into Black Sabbath at the time. I liked Sabbath's sound, and this album really floored me. It opened my eyes and ears to the world of late 1960's and early 1970's heavy rock and metal. There are so many influences that Trouble wears on their sleeves and make completely their own on this album. There is the doom of Sabbath, the adrenaline fueled, much more upbeat and heavy doom of Pentagram, the heavy harmonies and song structures of The Beatles at their gloomiest, and a hint of the pure hippiefied gloom of Donovan. I would not have the interest in doom & psych metal that I have today if it weren't for these guys. I can almost bet money that Monster Magnet and Kyuss paid close attention to this album when they were crafting their own, more modern brand of psychedelic metal in the early to mid 1990's.

Let me start by saying that the message of this album is overtly Christian. But there is a strange paradox here. The message on the surface seems positive, but if you dig a bit deeper it is far from it. The lyrics convey a strong sense of fear, paranoia, depression and hoplessness. There is little faith in humanity. They make you feel as if you are backed into a corner and the only way out is to hope for a better place in the afterlife. They leave you with the impression that hope for life in the hereafter is not the best alternative either. But what else is there? An impending sense of doubt, depression, and cynicism overrides any positive message found in the lyrics. Eric Wagner's vocals are tortured and full of pain, yet melodic and instantly accessible. The musicianship is incredible here.The crushing guitar work never lets up, even when it is at it's most mellow. A deep seated sense of dread, paranoia,and fear hangs over every note of music played on this disc. When Eric Wagner sings that he has 'heaven on his mind', the music tells you the exact opposite. This disc is a walking paradox, and that is what makes it so great. The blind optimism of the Christian faith meets a cold brush with reality here. When you get through listening to this album, you will not want to convert. Far from it...it leaves you with the chills and the need to listen to something more cheerful or to go isolate yourself in a dark room for a while, contempalting suicide.

This is Trouble's greatest release, bar none. There is not a weak song on here. A few of my all time favorites are "The Wolf", the Donovan-like "The Misery Shows Act 3", and the drug addled full on psych/biker/metal of "Black Shapes of Doom". I cannot recommend this disc enough. It is only in print digitally...check out Amazon to download it for $9.99 US. To buy this one on disc will cost you a pretty penny indeed. Here's "The Wolf" and "Black Shapes of Doom". Enjoy.

TROUBLE

During the mid 1980's to the very early 1990's, when metal was at it's peak, there were very few bands that pushed the genre outside of it's limits. Of course you had the greats: Metallica, Slayer, Megadeth, etc. But there were very few that had the courage to look outside the genre for inspiration. Only a small handful, in fact. One of these is Trouble.

Trouble came out in the mid 1980's. They were a heavy doom metal band, but something about them was different. They had a firm grasp on Black Sabbath and Pentagram, and borrowed from their sound and made it their own. They were also heavily into the Beatles, Cream, Led Zeppelin, and the like from the late 1960's and early 1970's. They also incorporated these influences into their sound. What you wound up with was some ferociously heavy yet melodic psychedelic doom metal, years ahead of it's time. Before the rise of grunge, before the boom of stoner metal in the mid 1990's, there was Trouble, cranking out their own brand of mind blowingly heavy music. Many bands, such as Fu Manchu and Kyuss, owe some debt to Trouble's tainted reefer.

Trouble's sound is incredible. Crushing, thick, heavy riffs, frayed nerve endings guitar solos, and the desperate yet melodic vocals of Eric Wagner make for overwhelming yet addictive listening experience. Another unique thing about Trouble is their subject matter. Instead of your typical cliched metal lyrics of death and destruction, their lyrics are very spiritual, yet filled with doubt. They received a lot of flack about their Christian beliefs. At one time they received the cursed label of "white metal". No term can be wronger in describing their sound than that. If anything, their sound is gray and tortured...torn between the want to believe in a higher power and the harsh reality of life. It is very hard to make that leap of faith, but what do you do when you are dragged down to the bottom and there is nothing left to believe in? Do you believe in nothing or in the hope that there is something else? Trouble's lyrics walk this line between faith and doubt very carefully. In the end, you are left feeling just as uncertain or depressed as you did when you first started listening. There are no answers. Ultimately, Trouble's version of spirituality is no different than that of The Beatles, or of Black Sabbath circa "Master of Reality". Take it or leave it, the music is still heavy as ever.

Their early work is their heaviest. "Psalm 9"(1984) is a crushing piece of doom metal from start to finish. "The Skull"(1985) is slightly more varied. By this time, the drumming and songwriting had improved greatly, making for some irresistible head banging all the way through. On "Run to the Light"(1987), their sound began to mature, with keyboards and more melodic and trippy sections, but they keep that paranoid, crushing, impending sense of doom all the way through.

Trouble's later efforts are incredible as well. Breaking out of the doom mold and more into extremely catchy retro psych rock...but that is for another day. Right now, soak up the doom of Trouble's first three albums. They are best if listened to in chronological order. After hearing "Psalm 9" you want more, after "The Skull" you are absolutely hooked, and by the time you hear "Run to the Light" you will be obsessed...

Here's "Bastards Will Pay" from "Psalm 9"...


Here's "Fear No Evil" from "The Skull"...


And here's the video for "Run to the Light".

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