THE GROOVEMAN'S COLLECTION

REVIEWS FROM MY VINYL COLLECTION

Day: December 2, 2021

TROUBLE – Manic Frustration

December 2, 2021 /

It’s great to see these albums reissued from these doom/stoner metal pioneers. They obviously take reference from classic era Sabbath as their blueprint, even with a heavy groove thrown into the mix as well. Eric Wagner also influenced a lot of vocalists in the way he sang, and I’m sure Chris Cornell and Eddie Vedder had Trouble records in their collection.

I’ve always loved this album as they were on fire at this point. Come Touch The Sky is a great opening tune, but the following track Scuse Me is absolutely epic and grooves hard with a monster riff. Then you get smashed with The Sleeper which is as groovy as hell, and is a contender for best track on the album. A big mention to Rick Rubin for a stellar production and Brendan O’Brien as engineer. The album does go a bit trippy and psych on tracks like Rain and Tragedy Man which is interesting, but its when they bring the heavy that this band really excels. A lot of these roots rock bands would have died for the riff in Hello Strawberry Skies and is the definite highlight of Side 2.

Psalm 9 is still (IMHO) the best thing they did, but there are some definite killer moments on this album.

8.5/10 from The Grooveman.

MOTORHEAD – Aftershock

December 2, 2021 /

This is studio album Number 21, and the the penultimate one at that. They probably will keep wheeling out live recordings and endless substandard things just to cash in on what was (at their height) a killer band. I thought this album and the two before (Motorizer and Kiss Of Death) were really good albums and a return to that old spirit, mainly thanks to a great production by Cameron Webb. Let’s be honest here, there are a bunch of mid period albums that aren’t that good and the band suffered because of these. I don’t think you can beat the Lem, Phil and Eddie days as they were untouchable. I’m glad I got to witness that line up numerous times. However, in Mickey Dee, Lemmy had found the best drummer he had, and he is a great driving force on this record. Phil Campbell’s contribution to this record are probably the best in terms of riffs and leads.

As well as the usual double kick sledgehammer songs, there is a bit of subtlety as well with tracks like Lost Woman Blues, which starts off as an almost traditional blues standard but ends in ZZ Top style boogie. End Of Time could have been a classic line up tune – it’s a belter. One of my favourite modern Motorhead songs is Going To Mexico. It’s a killer track which has Phil playing his ass off and a typical desperado lyric from Lem. The close out track, Paralyzed, is one of the heaviest tracks the band had done at this point.

The sad thing about this is that you can hear Lem struggling on some of the songs. On the album after this, Bad Magic, you can tell the end is not far away. If this album would have been the last album, I think it would have been a fitting end as they would have gone out on a high.

9/10 from The Grooveman.

Archives

© 2025 THE GROOVEMAN'S COLLECTION

Theme by Anders Noren — Up ↑