lista zespołów Heavy Metal Ozzy Osbourne Patient Number 9

Well, ladies and gentlemen of the metal world, I never thought we would be here. As I type this review, three years after the release of this album, we are just two and a half months away from the day that we never believed any of us would actually live to see: at just 76, Ozzy Osbourne left this world to battle Ronnie James Dio in heavy metal Valhalla for the title of the king of rock and roll. Aside from an epic farewell show that featured the return of both Jake E. Lee and Bill Ward, Patient Number 9 serves as the final offering from the Prince of Darkness to the world.

But is it better than Ordinary Man?

Well, on the upside, I do feel like Andrew Watt may have heard our complaints about the first album. Whether he got someone else to help him with the mixing, or whether the slough of guest musicians help to even the proceedings out, it's significantly more listenable. Thankfully, there are no pop stars on this album: it's a rockier affair with bigger names, including the return of Lord Pinch Harmonics himself, as well as Metallica's bassist Robert Trujillo revisiting his old stomping grounds, members of Pearl Jam, Queens of the Stone Age, Foo Fighters (the late Taylor Hawkins, who died after three contributions were made to this album), Jeff Beck and Eric Clapton...and another legend, Tony Iommi himself.

With such a stacked rogues gallery, the results must surely be equally magnificent, right? Well, here's where the rubber unfortunately meets the Road to Nowhere. At thirteen tracks, this is Ozzy's longest album ever: and while the guest appearances do elevate the songs, a lot of the middle portion of songs could have very easily been removed and little of appreciable value would have been lost. Like most of Ozzy's second (and third) reunion albums that weren't Black Rain and Scream, Patient Number 9 suffers from same-sounding tunes that usually feature a soft acoustic intro, a mid-paced heavy section, and guitars tuned either in E-flat or C-sharp. At least Down to Earth tried to play in standard tuning for the sake of the elitists, which made things a little bit interesting. But here, all the songs being in roughly the same key and with so many to choose from, wearing the listener down might be the worst offense of the album. Lyrically, it's nothing that we haven't heard before: madness, the dark side of life, and the inevitability of death.

Which is not to say that it's all bad: the title track at least plays in an interesting key, evoking the lyrical themes if not the musicianship of "Diary of a Madman", while the next two keep up the energy - and showcase Zakk Wylde eclipsing Andrew Watt. However, the unfortunate truth is that the first five tracks of this album really are the strongest, with the only "B-side" contender being masturbatory-warning track "Degradation Rules". Tony Iommi takes a break from remastering the Martin albums to remind us all why he's the uncontested riff-master, in any key and with any singer. If you squint hard enough, Trujillo's finger-playing might seem like an approximate Geezer Butler impression to fool you into thinking this could have been a Black Sabbath song. And yes, that is Ozzy shredding on the harmonica just like the old days. While the other Iommic offering "No Escape from Now" has gotten more attention from both fans and detractors, my money is on "Degradation Rules" simply because, unlike most of the songs on this album, it hits the ground running and doesn't let up: even the brief pause in verse three just feels like a gasp of air before that titanic Iommi guitar smashes your face in.

Overall impression is that The Ozzman Leaveth us with a final album that is, at worst, only a little bit above Ordinary Man in terms of quality. Better mixing, not to mention the riff and fret-work of Tony Iommi and Zakk Wylde, elevate what could have been another Ozzmosis clone into a darksome final word whose peaks are higher than those of the previous albums, and its valleys slightly less deep. As the Prince of Darkness says, paraphrasing the Highlander's arch nemesis, "better to burn in hell than fade away." Patient Number 9 is a slow burner, a bit uneven at times, but a solid farewell to one of heavy metal's founding fathers and defining personalities.