Zakk followed this with a solo album called “Book of Shadows” in 1996 to fulfil his contract.
With Ozzy’s touring and recording days not as over as he had promised, Zakk still had a gig going, but with more time on his hands he still searched for an avenue in which to keep himself busy. So, in 1998 he wrote another album, and much like his “Book of Shadows” album he recorded all of the instruments and vocals himself, apart from the drums which were put down by Phil Ondich. This album, released under the band name of Black Label Society, initially was only put out in Japan in October 1998. The delay in releasing it in the US apparently was because of poor audio mixing, and this took several months in order to correct to a standard that Zakk was happy with. Along the way, Zakk and Ondich recorded a brand new song to add to the new release, the song “Lost My Better Half”, which went out on the US version. Following this though, there was a legal dispute over the record cover, which featured the band logo and album title with a likeness of the Johnnie Walker Black Label bottle label. This forced the band to release the album for a third time, now with a different cover. In order to help album sales, a new cover version of Ozzy Osbourne’s “No More Tears” was added to the album as a bonus track, a song that became one of the best things Zakk and Black Label Society ever did.
The debut album for Black Label Society is a real melting pot of just about everything you could possibly imagine - southern blues rock, hard core metal, brilliant guitar riffs from one of the modern masters, slow doom metal in an almost Black Sabbath setting, average pass-mark songs, acoustically driven riffs and the grinding and sometimes hypnotic vocals from the lead man himself. If you can't at least find something interesting amongst all of that lot then you are in the wrong place.
Zakk Wylde breaks away from his father figure Ozzy Osbourne here to produce something that is completely different from what he was playing and writing for the previous decade. In a refreshing attitude, he hasn't tried to reproduce that kind of music, instead blending his own roots to what he enjoys playing and bringing it all together in a package that is hard to define in a genre sense.
The mixture of songs here is as unusual as it is impressive. Vocally, Wydle is similar but different to Ozzy, and even though he does not try to mimic him at all you can pick up similarities at different times. His break out solos still steal the show, especially in early songs like "Bored to Tears" and "The Rose Petalled Garden". The opening riff of "Hey You (Batch of Lies)" is just awesome heavy stuff, before settling back into a battle between the more mellow then aggressive lyrical snatches. A really diverse and effective song. “Born to Lose” carries along in that same direction, the vocals leading the way over Zakk’s tracking riffs. The song catches fire in the second half, picking up speed and coming home strong.
"Peddlers of Death" has breakout solos, heavy riff, but is divided on a couple of occasions by some of Zakk's quiet piano driven melody in different parts of the song. Only Zakk Wylde could get away with doing something like that without destroying the song. "Mother Mary" is as belligerent a song as Zakk can dish up, in your face for most of the four minutes with more great guitar work. This is as far away as you can get from the start of the next song, whose mellow section of "Beneath the Tree" is almost like Soundgarden or very possibly like Black Sabbath's "Planet Caravan" but is combined brilliantly with Zakk's moaning vocals once the song kicks into gear. It's a band-defining song, showing the various levels that they can put together in their song structure, and that they have their own style without trying to sound like any other band.
"Low Dow" is back in your face, before the acoustic riff jam of "T.A.Z." again surprises you with the diversity on this album. "Lost My Better Half" is one of the heavier songs on the album, led by a great riff and vocal. There are some Tony Iommi solo moments through some of these songs - have a listen and try and pick which songs he may be paying tribute to, because it's a little too close on some occasions for it not to be deliberate. It was the writing of this song, as the extra track after the Japanese release, that apparently convinced Zakk to go in a heavier direction on future albums.
The album finishes up with two of my favourite songs, "World of Trouble" and "The Beginning... At Last", which are separated by the acoustically balladesque "Spoke in the Wheel" which again showcases the diversity that Zakk is capable of.
There is a tendency for the songs here to get a bit "samey", in that the guitar riffs through the songs seems to be a little bit repetitive in places. A lot of that is to do with Zakk's signature guitaring being prevalent all the way through, as well as his squeals. It could also be argued that he moves between the heavier riff and the quieter acoustic or piano a little too regularly to be considered a change.
As an outlet for his own musical writing away from his main gig with Ozzy Osbourne, this was an excellent first album for his 'other' band, which in recent years of course has now become his main focus.
Back in 2001 Ozzy released his “Down to Earth” album, one that despite Zakk’s playing failed to light any fires within me of the music produced. Feel free to check out the episode dedicated to it in Season 1 of this podcast. Following this I was disillusioned with where Ozzy was headed, and wondered just what would come next. The following year, I discovered Black Label Society for the first time with the release of their third album “1919 Eternal”, and was drawn in immediately. From there, I discovered that they had two previous albums and a live album, and so it wasn’t long before I had found them in order to hear if they could be anything like that album I had just discovered.
There is a real difference between “Sonic Brew” and “1919 Eternal”, but that discussion is for another day. What I did discover with “Sonic Brew” was pretty much as I described it earlier in this episode - southern blues rock combined with a harder core metal, that doom metal guitar where Zakk channels Iommi and makes a hybrid that is all of his own design. And then his vocals... I mean, it is such a combination, that doom guitar along with his doom vocals wrapped into the mix. That is what attracted me to this album so much. It is an eclectic mix, and there is quite a standard of the southern rock that Zakk had played before this album, but it is an evolving beast, and one that you can hear is morphing into something else, something more formidable. And while this album is certainly basically a solo album given that Zakk wrote all of the songs, and played all of the guitars and bass and piano, and sang all of the vocals, the growing concept that it should become a band is what helped to take all of this further than it could have if it had just remained Zakk Wylde alone.
There isn’t any doubt that this is an album that takes time to grow on you. You can’t walk into this thinking you are getting an Ozzy Osbourne album. I loved this when I first got it, and having had it back on my playlist for the last couple of weeks it has been a joy to experience once again. Black Label Society as a band has certainly had its hit and miss moments over the last 25 years, and not all of it is to my taste. What I can say is that this debut album was a pleasant surprise when I first heard the album, and it remains that to this day. An album that s bettered by some future releases, but still holds its own as an enjoyable experience.
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