Monday, October 26, 2009

Dusting Off a Cassette Pt. 31: Trouble: Plastic Green Head

Trouble is a stoner/doom metal band that first came to the scene's attention in the 1980's. The band was originally on Metal Blade Records and played a style of metal highly influenced by groups like Black Sabbath, Pentagram, and St. Vitus. The band used a lot of Christian imagery and basis for songs, so much so that their record label began promoting them using the term "white metal" as an antithesis to the black metal movement starting with groups like Bathory, Venom, Sodom, and others. The band though did not claim to be a Christian band, alienating them from Christian radio markets.

This album came out in 1995, significantly after the band had become well-known. By this point, they really did not hold much of a foothold in the metal scene, although this album contained the minor hit title track. The band's strength has always been its ability to combine doom metal riffs with 1960's style psychedelic rock, the album even features covers of a Monkees song and a Beatles song. That ability is still strongly evident even here. This would be the band's last album until reuniting in 2007.

All of the elements that made the band interesting are present here: heavy guitar riffs, psychedelia, Eric Wagner's trademarked groaning vocals, slower and deliberate songs. Unfortunately, at the time this came out those elements were not enough to guarantee a band success, even though it was clear the band had influenced grunge bands that were popular at the time.

I first heard this band on the local rock radio station and saw them in an issue of Metal Maniacs. I always wanted this album, if only for the title track. Recently I picked it up on cassette. The rest of the album does not quite a hold a candle to the amazing lead track, but it is nevertheless a decent enough album.

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