Description

Double album on black vinyls with comic book by Todd McFarlane

ll never die, because I’m immortal, sings Ozzy Osbourne on the second track of his 13th solo album. It’s not the last time Patient Number 9 mentions cheating death: I’m coming out of my grave … you’re going to see my face, he sings on No Escape From Now, while One Of Those Days has him killing myself – but I never die. You can understand why Osbourne might be preoccupied with cheating death or rising from the grave in 2022. It’s not just that he has been plagued by health problems in recent years – Parkinson’s disease and surgeries after a fall at home and to combat nerve pain among them – it’s that every project Osbourne has involved himself in recently has had an air of finality about it. A farewell tour, a reunion album with Black Sabbath motivated by concluding his career with the band in the right way, a subsequent Sabbath tour called The End: even Osbourne’s last solo album, 2020’s Ordinary Man, was reviewed as if it was his last. But here he is, two years on and he brings in an all-star supporting cast: Tony Iommi, Jeff Beck, Osbourne’s longstanding guitarist Zakk Wylde, Josh Homme, Pearl Jam’s Mike McCready, and the late Taylor Hawkins as well as getting Eric Clapton to play on One Of Those Days in a wah-pedal heavy style that’s, thrillingly, closer to his work with Cream than his solo oeuvre. The sound of the album manages to be current – there’s a daringly glaring use of Auto-Tune here and there – while flicking skilfully between Sabbath-esque sludge, the glossier pop-metal of Osbourne’s 80s albums Bark at the Moon and The Ultimate Sin and the odd intriguing detour, most notably the string-laden A Thousand Shades, which delves into Osbourne’s lifelong Beatles fandom. It’s better to burn in hell than fade away, he sings, a perfectly Ozzy-esque retooling of the old Neil Young lyric that ended up part of Kurt Cobain’s suicide note. It’s tempting to say it sounds like an elegiac farewell, and that the album it concludes would be a fine way to say goodbye. But then again, we’ve been there before with Osbourne, several times.

Track list:
1. Patient Number 9-with Jeff Beck
2. Immortal-with Mike McCready
3. Parasite-with Zakk Wylde
4. No Escape From Now-with Tony Iommi
5. One Of Those Days-with Eric Clapton
6. A Thousand Shades-with Jeff Beck
7. Mr. Darkness-with Zakk Wylde
8. Nothing Feels Right-with Zakk Wylde
9. Evil Shuffle-with Zakk Wylde
10. Degradation Rules-with Tony Iommi
11. Dead And Gone
12. God Only Knows
13. Darkside Blues