Now when I signed up as a fan of Black Label Society, around the release of 1919 Eternal I can honestly say that I did not sign up for this.
Book of Shadows was a different story when Zakk released it. It was a change, and it showcased his talents. From Black Label Society, however, I am looking for hard, heavy riffage and similar lyrics. That, however, is not what we have received here for the majority of the album.
It starts off fine with “Crazy of High” and even “Queen of Sorrow”, before the slow and sludgy pace drops down even another notch. Then the piano gets broken out from “Yesterday, Today, Tomorrow” onwards, and we continue down that path. By the time we get to the cover of “Whiter Shade of Pale”, it really is snooze time. If this is what he was looking for when writing and recording this album, then it is a job well done.
My major concern of the album is the pace of the songs. I would prefer them to all be a lot faster than they are. Zakk’s soloing is still just brilliant, there’s absolutely no doubting who is behind the guitar. But the songs just seem to plod along. OK, so it’s ‘hangover music’, but really, it is so very different from what I was expecting – or perhaps, what I was hoping for. I am not denigrating the songs here because of that. In fact, the songs still sound great, Zakk’s vocals are as great as always, and the instrumentation is still strong. It’s just the style of the songs that doesn’t grab me. I can’t rate an album highly that I won’t pull out of the CD case to listen to in favour of others, because of its style. I just am never really in the correct mood that I would need to be in to listen to this album very often.
Putting it bluntly, this is very close to complete rubbish.
Rating: If I was looking for this style of album and music, I wouldn’t have looked under Black Label Society. 2/5.
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