Live In Los Angeles [LP]

Kory Clarke was probably never long for Trouble, but this 2008 live (and only) release featuring himself and the band documents the good, the bad and the ugly of his tenure. Coming in after the legendary Eric Wagner left (again) Clarke exhibits none of the mournful wail that Wagner had and instead is like a rocket fueled injection into the Trouble vocalist spot.Wartell, Franklin and Olsen are there to hold down the fort as the band makes it's way through a set of material from the Simple Mind Condition release with sprinkles of their not too distant past thrown in for good measure. Instead of recording an all new studio album with Clarke and letting him cherry pick from the catalog the songs that work best for him (ala Van Halen w/Hagar or Dio w/Heaven and Hell) the band hit the road with Clarke manning the boards. His raspy whiskey soaked vocals lend themselves to songs such as The Eye and The Sleeper but run afoul as he never could quite get the classic Tempter down right as to why it's not featured here.No doubt Clarke's antiestablishment rhetoric fits the band lending some of these songs a more poignant bent as he screams 'middle east Vietnam' during Plastic Green Head, but it's also nice when the band pops into the instrumental Endtime giving Clarke a moment to rest. Live in Los Angles is a document to a band in flux as Clarke would exit and Exhorder front man Kyle Thomas would enter next.