cited influences by the early heavy rock bands of the 1970s such as Deep Purple, Led Zeppelin, Budgie, and Black Sabbath, Trouble have also incorporated elements of psychedelic rock to their style. Their use of slow tempos was notable at a time when NWOBHM and thrash metal bands were increasingly incorporating fast-picking and speed into their songwriting. While most slow songs by metal bands border into the area of ballads, all of the tracks on Trouble's second album The Skull are as heavy as they are slow, with a distinctive fuzzy distortion and melodic, integral (rather than superfluous or ostentatious) guitar solos. The band could best be described as combining the riffs and tempos of Black Sabbath with the twin guitar attack of Judas Priest. Eric Wagner's lyrics deal with different themes, but the early Trouble albums, such as their debut Psalm 9, are known for biblical references. Especially because such themes were relatively uncommon in mainstream metal music of the 1980s, Trouble were then often classified as Christian metal. Other songs deal with social issues; "Bastards Will Pay", for instance, criticizes politicians as hypocritical. From Manic Frustration onwards, more lyrical references have been made to psychedelia, drugs, and hallucinations; "Hello Strawberry Skies" and "Mr. White" stand out as two examples. Corresponding with the increase in psychedelic lyrical themes, Trouble's overall sound has also had a noticeably stronger psychedelic component. Also, unlike other metal acts of the 1980s, Trouble's members dress in ripped jeans, tight T-shirts, wear round sunglasses and have fringes and outfit accessories more characteristic of the hippie movement such as bandanas and knee patches. Reception Problems with both the Metal Blade and Def American labels made it impossible for Trouble to achieve large commercial success. Even though their music videos were aired on MTV in both the U.S. and Europe, Manic Frustration was the only album that sold close to 100,000 copies. However, Eduardo Rivadavia of AllMusic wrote that "their preservation efforts nevertheless rescued metal's original blueprint from disuse, and carved it in granite for subsequent exploration by each new generation of doom bands that followed." It was said that Trouble took up where Black Sabbath had left off after their split with vocalist Ozzy Osbourne. Psalm 9 and The Skull are often cited as the cornerstones of doom metal as well influencing other bands of the uprising metal movement during the mid-1980s. A famous story states