” Put it this way, you know how Black Flag kills
\nroaches dead? Well, Black Label kills fucking cheese pop bands
\ndead!” – Zakk Wylde<\/p>\n
Bold words, little man — not surprising, seeing how you’ve
\nsurvived the longest stint as a guitarist for Ozzy Osbourne, and
\nhave helped to create some of Osbourne’s best music (
\nNo More Tears<\/i>) while facing the slings and arrows of those
\nwho long for the ghost of Randy Rhoads.<\/p>\n
And, really, Zakk, I’d like to believe that Black Label
\nSociety’s second album,
\nStronger Than Death<\/i>, is the kind of disc that would do a
\nTexas two-step on the spines of some of these kindergarten bands
\nout there. Only one little problem: this album is meandering,
\nunsure which way it wants to go. The songwriting is hardly up to
\npar — and I know that you’re capable of much better work than
\nthis.<\/p>\n
Black Label Society is a band that often tries to go for the
\ncrunch factor in the music, usually by performing the tunes in a
\nlow “D.” Too bad the material doesn’t follow in suit all the time.
\n“All For You” is an okay opener, but it hardly has the kind of
\nmuscle I would have expected from someone of Wylde’s
\ncapacities.<\/p>\n
And the music occasionally takes a turn towards industrial, as
\nheard on “Phony Smiles, Fake Hellos” and “Counterfeit God” — the
\nlatter being one of the few truly enjoyable songs on the disc. It’s
\nalmost as if Wylde wanted to try and create an atmosphere first,
\nthen shaped the songs around that. Nice try, but it didn’t
\nwork.<\/p>\n
Songs like “Love Reign Down,” “13 Years Of Grief” and the title
\ntrack all end up sounding like a band who is trying to capture
\npeople’s attention by emulating all the groups they grew up
\nlistening to. And as for Wylde’s guitar work — let’s just use the
\nterm “disappointing”. I understand that Wylde wants to grow as a
\nmusician, and I can’t always expect to hear
\nNo More Tears<\/i>-like work on everything he does. But more
\noften than not, Wylde’s solos tend to blur with the rhythm track,
\nand it all ends up sounding like so much sonic mush.<\/p>\n
Wylde’s vocals range from a pure Ozzy clone (the first verse
\nfrom the album’s opener “All For You”) to a dead ringer for Phil
\nAnselmo from Pantera (most of the album). In all honesty, I would
\nhave preferred to have had Wylde hire a singer just so he could
\nhave put his all into the songwriting and guitar work.<\/p>\n
All of this said,
\nStronger Than Death<\/i> has its moments, though they are few and
\nfar between. “Rust” is a beautiful track whose power grows as the
\nsong progresses. Ditto for “Just Killin’ Time,” a definite
\nhighlight of this disc. And while “All For You” still isn’t the
\nsong I think it could have been, it is an okay effort that I found
\nmyself going back to.<\/p>\n
Wylde is undoubtedly one of the hardest-working musicians out
\nthere who is not one to rest on his laurels when there’s work to be
\ndone. I only wish he had put a little more into
\nStronger Than Death<\/i>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":25418,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[],"artist":[6332],"rating":[11204],"class_list":["post-36624","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-black-label-society","rating-rating-c-minus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/36624","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=36624"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/36624\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25418"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36624"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36624"},{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=36624"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=36624"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}