Plastic Green Head

Trouble haven't changed a whole hell of a lot over the years, though they started out dark and eerie, worshiping at the altar of Sabbath. On this album there is silly plenty of Sabbath worship, but also more of an upbeat, hard rock feel. I would even say that a little grunge has crept into their sound(to be fair, it's probably the other way around, Trouble influence crept into grunge.) Some 60's pop rock, psychedelic influence as well, including two covers, one by The Beatles, and the other by The Monkees of all people. And surprisingly it's the latter that is actually really good.

The album is almost kind of split in half, the first half which are the good songs, and the second half which are the not so good songs. "Plastic Green Head," "The Eye," "Flowers," these are all what you would expect from Trouble, huge churning riffs, 80bpm drumbeats, Eric Wagners nasal yet powerful voice. They are simple, they are catchy, and they are just plain good. "The Porpoise Song" is a cover of a song by The Monkees, and strangely enough it's very good. Big wall of guitar noise, and Eric singing in a less nasal and more melodic voice. "Opium Eater" sounds like it could easily be an Alice in Chains song, everything from the riff to the vocal patterns, especially the pre-chorus. It sounds so much like an Alice in Chains song, you could easily fool a casual fan with it. I don't mean that in a bad way, it's a great song for sure. "Hear the Earth" has another big riff, and catchy chorus, and sounds like the first 3 songs.

From there the album takes a dive, none of the remaining songs are really memorable. The cover of The Beatles "Tomorrow Never Knows" is pretty awful and the intro to it is just plain silly. "Requiem" is an attempt at a ballad and it's really boring. "Below Me" sounds like a punk song, and it's the worst one on here. Bonus track "Till the End of Time" is crap. The rest of the songs are ok, but nothing to write home about. All though "Long Shadows Fall" isn't bad, and has a killer main riff.

Could have made an excellent 7 or 8 song album/EP but instead it's merely a mediocre full length.