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| Ozzy's Black Rain CD | Not of Ozzy's fault, obviously, I just loved the songs that I already knew.
The only thing is that the CD case came broken all over.
I RECOMMEND THE CD FOR EVERYONE. | Written on 19 February 2010 |  |
| Signs Of Life | This is not one of those Ozzy albums which will amaze the listener, but it does provide more than a little evidence that Ozzy can still rock. Ozzy also shows that he isn't afraid to update his sound a bit, as there is some experimentation here with industrial metal, though for my tastes I would have preferred that he did more of that instead of falling back to his older sound on some of the pieces.
The opening piece is "Not Going Away" which appears to be a biographical
statement about Ozzy not retiring. It is a solid piece and is one of the pieces on which he experiments with his sound, but ultimately it fails to grab the listener, and it did not grow on me with repeated listenings. Next up is "I Don't Wanna Stop", which is a similar lyrical message, but a stronger piece, with some great instrumentation. However, when one compares this to some of Ozzy's greatest pieces it just doesn't match up. Next up is the title track, "Black Rain", a piece which Ozzy questions the purpose of the war. For me this is the strongest of the tracks, though it too would not be considered in the top tier of all Ozzy's songs.
The ballads are the weakness of this album, as unfortunately it has been a long time since Ozzy has done any ballad which didn't sound like one he has done before. The first one is "Lay Your World On Me". It sounds like any number of previous efforts, and lyrically is probably weaker than most. Up next is "The Almighty Dollar", once again a slightly different sound, but this one just doesn't work for me. It isn't bad, and it does have some interesting sections, but it just doesn't hold up as a complete piece. "11 Silver" is a high energy effort, but as with its predecessor it ends up around an average piece because it doesn't all fit together, though there is a furious guitar solo which perhaps moves it slightly above average. "Civilize The Universe" is a bit better to my ears, and it is one of the highlights of the album.
"Here for You" is the second ballad, and as with the first one, it is one of the weaker tracks. Ozzy should consider doing an album or two without ballads, unless he can really come up with something different. "Countdown's Begun" is a more traditional sounding heavier Ozzy song, though it seems to signal that the inventiveness of the sound on the earlier tracks as run out. As an Ozzy piece, I found it rather unexceptional, though preferable to the ballads. The last piece on the regular CD is "Trap Door", which is another of the better pieces on the album, though the lyrics are too repetitive for me, it at least offers a pretty good jam.
The Japanese release contains two bonus tracks, the first of which is "I Can't Save You" This sounds more like an older Ozzy piece, but it has a decent sound so of the more traditional Ozzy sounding pieces on this album, it would have been my favorite, were it not for the second bonus track "Nightmare", which once again doesn't fit as much with the industrial metal sound of a lot of this album, but is the best of the traditional Ozzy pieces included.
In terms of composition, this album is essentially a three person effort. Ozzy, Zakk Wylde, and Kevin Churko composed all the pieces, with the exception of "The Almighty Dollar" and "Trap Door" for which Zakk is not credited as composer. The musicians are Ozzy Osbourne (vocals), Zakk Wylde (guitars and keyboards), Mike Bordin (drums and percussion), and Blasko (bass). Though it is a bit inconsistent, I am rounding this one up to four stars.
| Written on 22 June 2008 |  |
| Brilliant album. It was let down by the 2 boring ballads. | | This is a bloody brilliant metal album it's got heavy riffs, great solos by Zakk, good enough lyric & excellent vocals which to be is what you'd excpect from a metal album. Yes the album is ruined by ozzy's god awful ballads and when you're listening to them you just know he's singing about sharon so it makes you want take off your ears, but dont worry this album is packed with 8 great metal songs, the best being I Don't Wanna Stop, Black Rain, 11 Silver & Countdowns Begun all fantastic metal songs which no metal fan should hate. This is the only album i have from Ozzy's solo career but i have to album from The Ozzy Sabbath era, and i must say this is awesome. If you're an Ozzy fan Black Sabbath fab buy this album ignore the 2 ballads (Lay your world on me & Here For You) and listen to some great metal. Rock On Brothers. The Metal Real. | Written on 07 June 2008 | |
| Great Album | | Finally Ozzy has relesed an new album!!!! It's been 6 years since we've heard new material from the Prince of Darkness. And I cannot say he has dissapointed anyone. This is a great ablum. Good Lyrics, Good Guitar Riffs, What more could you ask for?????? | Written on 05 April 2008 | |
| Awesome album | Black Rain! What can we say? Well this album really is absolutely awesome, Ozzy just gets better and better.
We haven't stopped listening to it since we bought it from Amazon.
Buy it, it's pure brilliance, Ozzy is definately 'Not Going Away' | Written on 08 March 2008 | |
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