Simple Mind Condition

Trouble are one of my favourite doom bands, and they overall have a flawless discography but this album more or less ruins it.

“Simple Mind Condition” is a funny record because they decided to put the crap songs on the A side of the album and put all of the good songs on the B Side, I more or less pooh-poohed this album when i started to listen to it because most of the songs at the start are, well… total shite. The only songs that do anything for me on the A side are “Seven” and “Trouble Maker.” The first song on this album “Goin’ Home” is actually my least favourite song on the whole album, generally speaking the first 6 songs are just dumbed down versions of the previous albums, seriously. Take the most boring and bland parts of “Plastic Green Head” & “Manic Frustration” and that’s the A side for you.

The B side is where things pick up quite a bit. “Arthur Brown’s Whisky Bar” is the worst song on the B side and is honestly not that bad (not exactly interesting though, either;) Ironically enough is the first song on the B side, after that song the album gets better with headbangers like “ Simple Mind Condition” & “ If I Only Had a Reason” which is something that the A side lacked (Side A drones on forever, Yick!.)

The production also isn’t great, not like an album like “Psalm 9” which had rough production but was still absolutely fantastic. The production for “Simple Mind Condition” is crap, what I would consider “good” bad production is: Thick and heavy guitar tone, audible bass, crisp and punchy drums, vocals that are not too loud or not too quiet and mixed so that you can hear everything and so that nothing gets lost or buried, early Trouble albums had this but not here; The guitars are dull and lifeless, the bass is hardly audible, the drums are sort of okay but not very punchy, the only good this that Wagner’s voice is very balanced and fairly mixed but other than that the production is pretty not great. Methinks Trouble were trying to go for the production that you would hear on 70s metal/hard rock (such as Sabbath, Deep Purple, Led Zeppelin) but unlike those bands the production falls flat and is limp and lifeless

Overall “Simple Mind Condition” more or less is an album that most will find uninteresting and lacking, personally I wouldn’t listen to the whole album but instead i would only listen to certain tracks, I found this album pretty boring but not unlistenable in any way, the only people that should listen to this album beginning to end are Trouble completionists who must listen to everything that Trouble released.

Best Songs: “Seven” “Trouble Maker” “ Simple Mind Condition” “ If I Only Had a Reason” “ The Beginning of Sorrows”
Worst Songs: “Goin' Home” “Mindbender” “Pictures of Life”