trouble, trouble

Psychotically Reacting to a New Music Trend – 93%

bayern, September 5th, 2025

Looking for trouble again… and not only because not many fans out there do. Yeah, this act’s popularity should have hit the stratosphere back in the 80’s, when their encompassing metal feats rang truer than 90% of the output around at the time. They should have made it to the upper echelons with the potent blend of all things metal, their doom-laden propagations of the old school values backed by some truly expert musicianship.

I got introduced to the band’s art in 1990 through the track “Psychotic Reaction” from the album reviewed here, as it was constantly rotated around the music TV channels (MTV, Raw Power, etc.) alongside Pantera’s “Psycho Holiday”, Prong’s “Beg to Differ”, etc. So we had a PPT, in other words, a really strong Power Point presentation whose intention was to show how the physiognomy of our favourite metal would be upgraded in the new decade. Quite honestly, neither of the three compositions offered anything drastically new, but at the same time neither sounded like a nonsensical regurgitation of the sacred sounds from the very recent past. I got hooked to the Trouble part of it the most, as I really loved this confrontational steam-roller rhythm-section, this very effective abrasive rifforama topped by these inimitable, impossibly attached, clean high-strung vocals.

Interestingly enough, the band’s older works were not hard to find in Bulgaria in the early-90’s, and before long I also had the first two instalments in my hands (“Run to the Light” wasn’t available), and couldn’t help but admire the musicians’ uncanny knack of enmeshing all possible ingredients (power, heavy, thrash, etc.) into their arcane doom-soaked proclivities, without sounding awkward even for a split second. A totally compelling package which I listened for days on end back then, also raising quite a few other people’s awareness of the existence of this troublesome but very intriguing Chicago-based team.

It was later that I found out that all the three bands, Pantera included, were not quite the darlings of the metal circuit at the time, but were looking for wider exposure with the new slabs they had released, and must have been selected purposely by the powers that be to instigate a new metal rebellion. Ironically and also quite unfairly, the oldest of the lot, our Chicago-spawned troublemakers, remained the least celebrated of this riotous group, regardless of their invaluable, pioneering contribution to the formation of the stoner side of our beloved doom…

not so much with the album reviewed here which still tumbles walls down with nonchalant, reverberating ease, a most treasured bridge between the guys’ classic period and their subsequent hallucinogenic/psychedelic fantasies, spearheaded by the inimitable passionate croons of Eric Wagner, an emblematic presence that could easily accommodate any integrated mellower digressions, and why not newly-sprung metallic branches even. And here we go, the harbingers of the spacier, more leisurely-concocted layout are already in place, we can’t bypass them even if we want to, especially since one of them (“The Misery Shows”) is a sprawling 7.5-min long ballad, an effective introspective piece nicely assisted by the bouncy bluesy etude “A Sinner’s Fame”. The rest, however, stands to scrutiny even by the most capricious, fastidious supervisors out there, the mentioned “Psychotic Reaction” a most squashing ass-kicker that already flags the emerging psychedelia around, but this is a still pretty confrontational exhibition, the guys speeding up at every opportunity (the excellent near-headbanger “R.I.P.”, the heavy-as-fuck stroll “Heaven on My Mind”), dispersing the gathering doom with overt rowdiness, the latter seeing the end of its hegemony in the band’s repertoire, also thanks to volatile dynamic hecticers like “E.N.D.” and the thrashily invasive “At the End of My Daze”. The infectious melodiousness of “All Is Forgiven” hangs onto the edges of the doom realm with semi-faded dignity, but with the standout lead guitar work unleashed all is forgiven eventually, not to mention the genre spelt, literally as well, in its entirety on the volatile jump-arounder “Black Shapes of Doom”, said shapes almost dark enough to scare away the wolves on the compelling fast-paced breezer “The Wolf”.

In the long run, this is a fourth strong convincing Trouble effort in a row, what’s not to celebrate with a bowl full of hallucinogenic mushrooms’ soup, the guys very sagaciously sensing the changing currents on the scene, standing pretty much on the forefront alongside the other rebellious cohorts, and yet failing to fully capitalize on this defiant stance. On this slab here their unruly demeanour was still more on a standby mode, but it was obvious that the good old doom wasn’t going to make the rounds in the same ship-sinking manner, and that trouble would be stirring in its backyard due to both arising musical aberrations and more or less forbidden substances. The only fear that remained tangibly in the air was what exact form their future strives would take: would they follow the others down the groove/post-thrash path, or would they try to come up with their own version of the numetal vogues?

Their solid albeit not voluminous fanbase didn’t have to wait long to find that out as two years later the band released their frustration from the metamorphoses on the scene with a full-on take on the psychedelic motifs from the album here, giving rise to the stoner/doom hybrid, also generating very positive feedback from the media. Naturally, another recording in the same vein followed suit in 1995, again impressing the critics, but that was all… the development of the genre was left to the mushrooms (Acrimony, Spiritual Beggars, Electric Wizard, Spirit Caravan, Kyuss, Sleep, etc.) that sprang up from the provided by them psychedelic shower. The reunion with Wagner in the new millennium produced a simple-minded outing, unfortunately, a feeble stoner/doom/rock compilation that sounded nothing like the first four efforts, save for a few isolated moments. Wagner was gone again, but he contributed to the further evolution of the stoner/doom department on three whole fronts: the unit under his own name; Blackfinger, a collaboration with the Penance/Dream Death guitarist Terry Weston; and The Skull, his direct answer to his former colleagues, largely founded with the participation of Trouble alumni, including the long-running bass player Ron Holzner. The damage to the genre was irreparable when the pernicious plague known as COVID-19 took the man away in 2021.

For the 2017 entry “The Distortion Field” the band, namely the founders and guitarists Rick Wartell and Bruce Franklin, invited Kyle Thomas from the aggro-thrashers Exhorder to lend his vocal skills. The man was already in the line-up in 1997, but Wagner’s return put him on the sidelines some more. Not that he was left in tears from this unheralded twist, as he was already fully-booked with a pleiad of more or less similarly-styled outfits (Alabama Thunderpussy, Aortha, Pitts vs. Preps), his fairly adequate contribution gracing a more convincing but still not fully satisfying assembly of familial stoner/doom sounds. The ship has been staying out of trouble for the past twelve years, also from the music scene… it takes a bit long for Wartell and Franklin to stitch another field, outside the rarities/demos compilation from three years back. I personally think the time is ripe for another collection of hymns and psalms, the more subversively and cryptically doom-exposed the better.