Trouble - Psalm 9/The Skull
80%
‘Are you looking for trouble????!!’, shouted some guy at the Metalbash XL in 2003. Back then, I wasn’t that much involved deeply in heavy music and the band that was about to hit the stage could not please me. It took them three years to receive my serious attention by re-releasing their first two albums in one package in which they included a bonus DVD in each of the records. Reading the biography of the band, I see that there will be a new album coming up and that the band will be on tour again.
Let’s face it, we’re not in the 70s or 80s anymore and these days we’re overloaded with any –core band you can imagine. Trouble is not of that kind, Trouble goes back to the roots of heavy music. In both lyrical and musical way this band is strongly, no hugely influenced by Black Sabbath according to the changes between slow rhythms and grooving guitar riffs and the empathy for dark lyrics. Perhaps the biggest difference with that band is due to the fact that this band consists of five instead of four members, which gives the music a link to the melodic bands of NWOBHM. Think of the accessible parts of a band like Cathedral, imagine a second guitar player and vocals that are placed at the background on purpose, that’s Trouble.
On Psalm 9 we get to meet a band that is searching for its definite sound. As a result of this, the music is more experimental than on the second disc. Changes in the music are sometimes weird and not that logic but it’s also what makes the band charming. Especially ‘Victim of the Insane’ and ‘Psalm 9’ sounded weird to me with at first listen. It really took me quite some time to understand those songs due to their sudden changes in pattern, both in melodic and rhythmic ways, but research on the net learned me that it is actually these two songs that seemed to have become popular of this album.
On The Skull, Trouble has gone in a little different direction. In this case, the experimental characteristics of the songs have changed into well worked out concepts without the sense for detail being lost. Probably the best example of this is the 10 minute lasting ‘The Wish’ in which singer Eric Wagner really tries to eat his mic by coming up with some great vocals. The rest of the songs can be characterized by mentioning the combination of anything that is dark. Drums(olo) and guitars, vocals and lyrics, you name it. Trouble presents it in a melodic, doomy but accessible package that nowadays is clear to put in the development of heavy music, but back in their own days, the band was not recognized as such.
Which leaves me to the final mark, besides mentioning that the bonus DVD’s both are a nice addition with the interviews and live performances that are included. These two cd’s come in one package if I’m correct, which is a good decision. Soon there will be a follow-up in the form of a new record and by creating a nice package that will be available for mid-price or something, early fans that have missed the albums back then or new interested people have the chance to complete their collection. And when they’ll listen to the work of Trouble, they will understand where bands like Cathedral and Paradise Lost have got their inspiration from.
