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.
