(no subject)

[miko2]

Today's Song: Pray For the Dead by Trouble

DOOM!

Well I said I was going to do a full week of disco, and we'll get back to that, but Trouble's Psalm 9 arrived in the mail today and I've been listening to it and now I'm in a mood for some heavy doom. We'll get back to the disco thing tomorrow.

DOOM!

I picked up Trouble's self-titled 4th cd back in early June, and I reccomended a song off of their web site because neither Trouble nor Manic Frustration were available on iTunes. Now that I'm in the mood to reccomend Psalm 9 from their first cd, I find that it also isn't on iTunes. Sheesh, what gives?

Anyway, when I ordered Trouble back in May I also ordered Psalm 9. I was actually kind of surprised to find that I didn't own it already. Against my usual good judgement I ordered it directly from Amazon, rather than someone else selling through Amazon. Then I forgot for more than a month that I'd even placed the order. Several weeks ago I was checking some other orders and saw that I had, in fact, already ordered Psalm 9, and it still hadn't been shipped. In mid July they sent me an e-mail saying they apologized for the delay, and then it shipped right after that, and arrived today.

The cd that I got is a digitally remastered and enhanced cd with a new article about the band and extra photos that were never included with the original album or cd, and there was even a DVD of a public access performance / interview from 1982. So I suppose the wait was worth it. ^_^ I watched the video, and now I'm in a doom mood so the disco is shelved for one night.

DOOM!

Trouble had a, shall we say, somewhat troubled history. They were one of the earliest "Christian" metal bands, but they reject that label. Unlike bands like Stryper, Barnabas, Bloodgood, and Barren Cross, Trouble had no plans to become an Evangelical band or to save anybody's soul. What they were was a band of Catholic boys who loved Black Sabbath but didn't really get into the hold Satanic evil thing, so they wrote about God instead. This opened them up to all sorts of problems, because in the early 80's Christian metal was on the rise. Their label promoted them as a "white metal" band, and this brought them criticism from people who didn't like Christian metal as well as from Christians who didn't think they were "Christian" enough. They fought back by denying that they were a Christian band, but that was never the whole truth, because they did base a lot of songs on Biblical themes and passages and promoted a generally pro-God attitude in their songs.

They were never really more than a cult band, but over the years people have come to recognize that they were a key founder of "doom" metal (the very slow, very very heavy style that owes so much to Sabbath). It's not too surprising that their oldest cds have been digitally remastered and reissued, or that they're touring successfully right now -- they probably have many more fans today than they ever had in the 1980's.

This video is the one of Psalm 9 from the 1982 Public Access show. Awesome stuff, if you like it heavy. Here's a recent concert video of them playing Psalm 9 in Stockholm, Sweden.

Since I can't reccomend anything from Psalm 9, I'm instead reccomending Pray For the Dead from their second cd The Skull. (This link is a live video with poor sound quality btw -- actually there's a second youtube live video of this song with even worse sound quality).

Anyway, this is music for people who like slow, extremely heavy Sabbath-influenced metal. If you like the videos for Psalm 9 you'lll probably like Pray For the Dead, and if you don't, you probably won't. ^_^

Trouble - Assassin (also from the 1982 Public Access show).

DOOM!