For
those of us who enjoy heavy metal music, the release of an Ozzy
Osbourne album is cause for celebration! Every serious fan of the
genre knows that you can always count on Ozzy to deliver the goods. After all, they don't call him The Prince Of Darkness for nothing! Anyone familiar with his long and storied career knows that he will
inevitably go down in music history as one of the most famous (and
infamous) performers of his time.
His
latest opus, forty-nine minutes of frenzied loudness entitled Scream,
landed on record store shelves on June 21, 2010, and was quickly
snatched up by legions of salivating fans. I was one of those fans
and, like most, when I received my copy in the mail, I tore open the
package and rushed immediately to my stereo. So what is my opinion of
his latest effort? Read on to find out.
As
much as it saddens me to have to say this, I think that Oz was a
little off his game on this one. There isn't really anything wrong
with this album; it's enjoyable enough. I can't say that it's
necessarily bad, but it definitely does not reach the high caliber of
his past efforts. I think this is the first time in his career that
he has left me with a feeling of complete indifference!
On the performance front, Ozzy's
voice is still top notch, and the songs are solidly crafted, but they
don't reach out and grab the listener as they have in the past. Instead, they just kind of fall flat, offering a generic,
watered-down representation of who Ozzy is and what he does. There's
just nothing much here to get truly excited about.
The
funny thing is that I can't really explain why; it's something
intangible. Somewhere along the line there's a missing ingredient,
and whatever it is, it makes all the difference. This time around,
the music just lacks that spark of true creative magic that has
always been present on Osbourne's previous efforts. Personally, I
think this is due, at least in part, to the absence of former
guitarist, Zakk Wylde. Current axe man Gus G spends the entire album
attempting to copy Zakk's trademark sound. Sadly, it just plain
doesn't work. If you want the guitars to sound like Zakk, then let
Zakk play them, for crying out loud!
There
are a couple of real bright spots here...namely track number three,
Soul Sucker, and track number five, Diggin' Me
Down, both of which are great. Aside from
those, nothing else really stands out. So after everything is said
and done, the music here is just average. Ozzy is definitely capable
of producing much better work than this. Casual fans need not spend
their money here; this one is for the die-hards only!
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