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Back on Metal Monday with a cult classic: Trouble’s 1990 self-titled lp on Def American, which happens to be my favorite Trouble release. 

Trouble is noteworthy for a few reasons, not the least if which is that it was produced by the oft over rated, but occasionally brilliant Rick Rubin, and released through his Def American imprint. Up to this point Trouble’s recognition outside of metal diehards had been pretty limited. They’d issued 3 albums, 2 of which, “Psalm 9″ and “The Skull” are often seen as their best work. Unfortunately for their bank accounts, Trouble specialized in a traditionalist blend of 70’s neo-classical albums like Judas Priest’s “Sin After Sin”, and early doom standards, principally the backbone of the Black Sabbath catalog. If you don’t know, that wasn’t exactly a stock heavily traded in during the 1980’s, so it must have been kind of astounding when this album dropped, 3 years after their previous and backed by the guy who’d produced a whole bunch of stuff that you like, and also a ton of shit. Oh the other thing about Trouble: they were White Metal band, in other words, they were vocally Christian. Obviously that’s not really towing the line in the metal world, but if you haven’t got the message yet, this band never towed the line.

Probably most important to evaluating Rubin’s production on Trouble is knowing that he’d produced 2 Danzig albums right before this one, and seems to be trying to fit Trouble into a similar doomy blues rock mold. One thing that makes that not really work is the shrill and trebley sound of the record (although it’s not nearly as bad as the follow up, Manic Frustration). Another thing that plays against that sensibility is that Trouble are by design elaborate. Vocally Eric Wagner has, shall we say, a well trained voice. He’s from the Halford school of metal, and isn’t afraid of some high notes. Similarly the guitar attack of Bruce Franklin and Rick Wartell can be quite busy, although they know how to hang back and keep economy on their side.

Do not be mislead though, this album is GREAT. The recording (despite the shit mastering job) is still clear and heavy, the songs include many of the best of Trouble’s career, and the album as a whole is even and well executed. Psychotic Reaction is an instant standout track with a dirty shit-kicking groove, (oh and I’m pretty sure Metallica ripped it off for Enter Sandman). Misery Shows is a pretty tasteful power ballad, and a reworking of a song from Psalm 9. It kind of has a Pink Floyd via heavy metal feel. The Wolf has an uptempo speed-rock drive like Judas Priest’s Tyrant. All of these are just on the first side of the lp, but the second side is just as memorable and rewarding.

Since Trouble didn’t have much success on Def American this lp went out of print pretty quickly and isn’t too easy to find. To my knowledge there have been no subsequent pressings either. Keep an eye on it.