The year of our Lord 2006 A.D. is looking to be a busy one for drastic doom legends Trouble. Is it a coincidence that the band's Swedish doppelganger Candlemass reunited torrid and triumphant with one of the top records of '05? Did, perchance, this happenstance push the notoriously patient and slow to rile Trouble cabal into some sort of competitive conflagration? For indeed, it has been Trouble and it has been Candlemass, since well on nigh into the early '80s, that have together defined fine grinding doom in the rooted and rested Sabbatherian style. OK then, is it a coincidence that Trouble, on their skull-frying new live DVD Live In Stockholm, is interviewed by none other than Candlemass bulkhead Leif Edling? No, it is not - Leif, of course, knows his doom like no other, he knows he is sitting down with a band certainly equal to his in stature and stateliness, and he knows that there is a certain power chord poetry to the band traversing half the world to deliver their sermon on the mount, here in the land of Candlemass.

For those who need a funereal refresher, Trouble arrived at this esteemed spot on metal's map through what is now nearly three decades of following their own frightening, psychedelic-damaged muse of morbidity. In 1983, Metal Blade's Brian Slagel liked what he heard, put their stone-carved monolith "The Last Judgement" on Metal Massacre 4, and then signed them to a record deal. Trouble bought a van and drove west. There they crafted a record of singular power and persuasion called Psalm 9. The incendiary wall-of-guitar madness promulgated by Rick Wartell and Bruce Franklin was a thing of terrible beauty. But still, somehow, over this seemingly endless red tide of axe-mad heroics, a voice cried out and was heard, Eric Wagner in possession of that voice, one that could cut down unbelievers, or at least stop them stunned in the tracks of their tears.

But unbelievers in what? Well, the astonishing thing about Trouble through those early years, on records like '84's Psalm 9, '85's The Skull and '87's Run To The Light, was that Eric was railing, near feverishly, about the pain reigning down from a savage and unmerciful Christianity. For lack of understanding and for expediency, label hype deemed these sermons "white metal." And I suppose that's what it was, even if fans of Barren Cross and bee-bonnet rockers Stryper wouldn't last a flaming moth's minute at the smothering wake of guitar mass that was a Trouble concert.

Mere earthly concerns such as drummer, label and management hassles would consume the band for three years as they readied their masterful self-titled record for 1990, Trouble landing themselves on Def American with Rick Rubin at the production helm. Rick turned the band into a finely tuned, stingingly metallic machine so heady of heavy highs that Trouble would become the band other bands spoke of in hushed tones. Solid sales figures and even MTV exposure ensued as the band went from strength to strength, turning in, for 1992, what the guys themselves consider their masterpiece, Manic Frustration. Nuances of Eric's near obsessive love for the Beatles blessed and finessed the record, as did more of a psychedelic predilection. But through it all, the frazzled and freaky guitar dementia shooting from the hands of Franklin and Wartell soaked the album in a boiling, acidic wash of pure metal.

Again shackled by drummer, management and label wranglings, Trouble would emerge in 1995 with Plastic Green Head, their most recent - but now tortuously temporally distant - studio album (now 11 years on, they are finally readying another). Plastic Green Head proved that this band, given their steady eye on quality and an attendant defiance at the pressures of time and the travails of the business, could do no wrong.

In fact, they have done no wrong. As Leif Edling, on Live In Stockholm, so knowledgably acknowledges, the band's tight catalogue of six studio albums is a canon beyond reproach. Fortunately for the viewer, Edling gets the band to talk intelligently and at length about each and every one of these records (Eric's recollections of writing The Skull are particularly poignant), as well as early influences and plans for the future, which included, at the time of the talk, the DVD at hand, an acoustic EP, and the band's long-awaited new studio album.

And if there's any cause to doubt the band's mastery come that new record, the root reason for this DVD to exist should explode those doubts like so much acrid gunpowder. Live In Stockholm, unsurprisingly, captures the band live in Stockholm, delivering an insanely hi-fidelity set in front of 700 discerning and demanding doom fans. The band's current lineup (and the one that set down in Sweden that fateful day), is frightening when witnessed in a live setting. Joining Eric, Bruce and Rick, is returning, original drummer Jeff "Oly" Olsen and on bass, longtime Trouble compatriot Chuck Robinson. Chuck joined the Trouble camp over a decade ago as Bruce and Rick's guitar tech and now holds the legendary bottom end like no fat-stringer that came before. Indeed, preparations for the show saw Chuck rehearsing, sometimes two times a day, with Olsen, just to get the crucial drum and bass rhythm section duality crushingly perfect. This all took place at Eric's house and summarily drove him crazy, but that's a story for another time…

The blood and sweat of Chuck's and Oly's toil, along with the jubilant caterwaul of what happens when Eric, Bruce and Rick join the coven (cigarettes and flying V's mandatory), can be heard as the band carves deep grooves through classics like "R.I.P.," "Run To The Light," "Come Touch The Sky," Fear" and "Psychotic Reaction," along with shocking rarities like "The Skull" and vengeful closer "The Tempter." Elsewhere, "The Misery Shows (Act II)" and "Memory's Garden" demonstrate Trouble's near scientific ability to harness all that electricity and deliver claustrophobic eulogies with somber efficiency. Eric is resplendent and untouchably cool in his shades, Bruce looks like a time-traveler from San Francisco circa '69, and the others are all business, laying down the grim metal magic with the precision and heft one has come to expect from Trouble's very expensive-sounding show.

Ultimately, Live In Stockholm is irrefutably proof, as if any was needed, that Trouble exist in a sort of metal music void, away from trend, away from concern for the business, away from timelines, away from any sort of influence save for the complex tangle of inspirations osmosed and injested in the early '70s as troubled kids in a troubled America. Live In Stockholm is, quite possibly, a capable capture of one of rock's greatest live bands operating at near peak condition. It is certainly a recording that captures the greatest lineup the band has ever put on offer, and it is certainly a celebration of all that can be crushing and torridly emotional about metal music. Bathing yourself in its light will certainly be your salvation from those who pose and oppose.