乐队列表 Heavy Metal Ozzy Osbourne No Rest for the Wicked

"Everything after Diary of a Madman sucks", "Ozzy's new material blows", "Ozzy sold out", "Black Sabbath sucked until Ozzy was kicked out of it"...I've heard it all. As a die-hard Ozzy fan, I try to like all of his material, even the older, heavier and more explicit material.

But No Rest for the Wicked? It has got to be the worst Ozzy album ever, bar none. Say what you will about "Down to Earth", "No More Tears", "Black Rain" and "Scream", but I found myself taking this CD out of the player out of sheer boredom, not having listened to half the album: something I can honestly say I have never done with the newer albums. That bad, really.

However, I actually did end up listening to the whole album all the way through. And my opinion on it hasn't changed. The only time I was ever this bored over something with Ozzy in it was Black Sabbath's Volume 4 album. It drags on for nine boring tracks, all of which sound exactly the same. There are no ballads to alleviate the nauseating middle-of-the-round pace of the album: it's neither shreddingly fast or too slow, just very sluggish. It's almost impossible for me to realize that the guitarist playing is actually Mr. Pinch Harmonics Zakk Wylde himself: his playing is just so...basic, so plain, like all the hair bands of the 80s. Seriously, after hearing this drag of an album, I want to hear him pulling off his pinch-harmonics and abusing the pentatonic scale, as you elitist fucks have accused him of doing on the better Ozzy Osbourne albums he's been on.

What, therefore, is left out of this mess? Well, after four tracks that sound too similar to be interesting, there's actually a bit of half-way decent riffage on "Breakin' All The Rules". But other than lyrical depth, there's not much else going for this track, except for a little bit of familiar Zakk Wylde shredding (perhaps the little that does sound 100% genuine Wylde).

The next track, despite abusing the riff that pretty much every other metal band has used before, is actually half-way decent as well. "Bloodbath in Paradise" is pretty much only good because its about the infamous orchestrator of murders of the California area, Charles Manson. Skillfully, another honorable mention should be made to Rick Castillo on "Tatooed Dancer", but that's all I can give on that track, because its my least favorite on this album.

I know I've stepped on many toes with this negative review on an Ozzy album, but I honestly cannot be reconciled with this album. Believe me, I've tried. Technical Ecstasy would have to be the worst album in the history of music to be worse than this. I know that I support Ozzy 100%, but only the most die-hard Ozzy fan would like this album, honestly. It just might be proof that, contrary to popular opinion of the metal mainstream elitists, drugs and alcohol make music worse.