107. Iron Savior / Battering Ram. 2004. 4/5.

I cannot help but continue to be impressed by this band – the concept band, not the concept album.

On this release, Iron Savior continue their progression into power metal's top echelon, continuing to drive their music to greater heights, even becoming heavier. In many ways, they appear to be modelling their progression on the greatest band of all, Gamma Ray. This is no real surprise, given Kai Hansen's involvement in the early albums, and his friendship with band leader, Piet Sielk.

Stand out tracks on the album include Battering Ram, Break The Curse, Stand Against The King, Time Will Tell, Riding Free and H M Powered Man.

Rating : This album continues to grow on me whenever I listen to it. A fan of power metal will love this, those that are not will probably not appreciate it as much. 4/5.

106. Blind Guardian / Battalions Of Fear. 1988. 3/5.

The first long-form release for Blind Guardian, following on from their two EP releases under Lucifer's Heritage.

In the same way as their earlier releases, there are distinct references to Helloween and Iron Maiden throughout this album. Certainly the guitaring is obvious at times, and allows their influences to shine through.
Songs like Majesty, Guardian of The Blind and Battalions Of Fear are my favourites on the album, and in my opinion the stand-outs.

This is a good album, impressive for a first up effort. Good songs, good vocals. It was a sign of what the band became.

Rating : A solid start, before their direction changed slightly later on. 3/5.

105. Lucifer's Heritage / Battalions Of Fear. 1987. 2.5/5.

This was the EP put out by the band that very shortly changed their named from Lucifer's Heritage to the better known Blind Guardian.
Most of the songs on this EP also appear on Blind Guardian's debut album, also entitled Battalions Of Fear (see next review).

Like other efforts within these walls, this is significant as a historical piece. Because most of this became half of the first official release of the band, it is interesting to see the difference in production between the two.

Rating : An interesting beginning. 2.5/5

104. Meat Loaf / Bat Out Of Hell. 1977. 5/5.

Given its enduring legacy, it seems amazing that this album took so long to come together, and that it was knocked back by several record companies prior to being accepted. Jim Steinman is the man behind the album, as the writer of all of the songs, and this album made him as a writer, after which he went on to write for many other prominent artists. Todd Rundgren was the producer of the album, who was not only an artist in his own right but transferred that to production as well, and while he was well known prior to this album, and was in fact hired for his reputation, that reputation garnered greater weight after the release of “Bat out of Hell”. While it was Steinman who came up with all of the arrangements for the songs on the album, it was Rundgren who actually put them together when it came time to record. This came about, so it is said, because Steinman would hum what he wanted, which Rundgren would then take and orchestrate.
This left the artist himself in Meat Loaf, whose actual name was Michael Lee Aday, and as an offshoot, whose daughter is married to Anthrax guitarist Scott Ian, making Scott Ian the most rock person in music with Meat Loaf as his father-in-law. Meat Loaf had met up with Steinman in a touring group, at a time when Steinman was putting together some songs that he wanted to create an album around, based on a musical he had written based on Peter Pan called Neverland. The songs “Bat out of Hell”, “Heaven Can Wait” and a form of “All Revved Up with No Place to Go” all appeared in that musical. Over a period of about two and a half years, they wrote and recorded material to get this up and running, all the while trying to get some interest from a record company to sign them for its release. Amazingly, they lost count of the number of rejections they received, even when they performed the material live to those companies. They eventually signed up to Cleveland International Records, and independent record label, to get the album to come to its fruition.
Upon its completion, there was still little response from the American market. However, videos recorded of the main songs being played by the whole ensemble took off in both Australia and the UK, and the album raced to the top of the charts as a result. And it was the initial singles, such as “You Took the Words Right Out of My Mouth” and “Two Out of Three Ain’t Bad” that helped this enormously.

“Bat out of Hell” is written in the style of a rock opera, much like other powerful album of the age including The Who’s “Tommy”, Pink Floyd’s “The Wall”, Queen’s “A Night at the Opera” and productions such as “Jesus Christ Superstar” and “The Rocky Horror Picture Show”. As a result there is a varying style of song on the album, reflecting just what part of the show that it represents. The very love angst pieces such as “Two out of Three Ain’t Bad” and “Heaven Can Wait” play off the more passionately sung songs of “For Crying Out Loud” and “You Took the Words Right out of My Mouth”. And then there is the faster and heavier songs where the scenes play out before you. “All Revved Up with No Place to Go” mixes motorcycle metaphors and teenage angst again. “Bat out of Hell” itself, in Steinman’s own words from the ‘Classic Albums” episode on this album, came as a result of Steinman's desire to write the "most extreme crash song of all time”. I think he succeeded. And the beautiful mix of musical sing off between characters in classic “Grease” style on “Paradise by the Dashboard Light” is the perfect example of why this works, even without the visual of a stage show.
All this results in an album that works in almost every setting. It isn’t stuck to a genre or anchored to its time as a result. The mix of hard riffing guitars and heavy beat drums with the rifling keyboards, and then back to the piano driven ballad with an orchestral feel about it, makes it a perfect music stage experience, but still also an album in its own right. With just seven tracks throughout, it still manages to have highlights throughout. Meat Loaf is brilliant throughout in both raising the tempo and drive of a song and also delivering the meaningful emotional songs with the same authority. It isn’t easy in delivering a song like “Heaven Can Wait” as well as being able to belt out the lyrics over several stanzas in the multi part epic that is the title track “Bat out of Hell”. And given his experience on the stage and screen by this stage, not least in the aforementioned “Rocky Horror Picture Show”, his performance in “Paradise by the Dashboard Light” is just terrific.

There has been little of my life without this album being a part of it, or so it seems looking back. My father got this album back around the time that it was release, or again so it seems, and mixed amongst the Johnny Cash and Tom T Hall and Kris Kristoffersen that floated through the house when he was in a mood also came this album. Certainly I recall it on longer car trips especially. And in the days where the radio was the main form of music both at home and in the car, it was unusual to have forty odd minutes of the same singer all coming out together. Eventually in my teenage years, when I wanted my own copy of the album, I went to my next door neighbour, and borrowed his vinyl copy of the album to record to cassette tape, and that really sounded so much better! And it was in those teenage years, when I started to listen to bands and buy their albums rather than just stick with the singles on the radio, that I truly began to appreciate this album overall. Because then I began to listen to it all over and over, and take in each song on its merits and how it fitted into the whole. And as I discovered rock musicals and the such and began to enjoy them, that just made this album even better.
There are times when Bat out of Hell almost became a premonition, driving around in my mates car and probably going way too fast, with this booming out of the tape player. And in the long run it is probably a strange album to love, given that it isn’t heavy metal, it isn’t hard rock, it isn’t soft rock... it is a combination of them all over the course of the seven tracks, and that to love one is to love all seven, and not just enjoy one or two of them separately. And I loved it as a kid, I loved it as a pop single pre-teen, I loved it as a hard rock mid-teen, and as a heavy metal mid-teen to the present. No matter what time of my music listening history I was in, this was an album that has always been on the play list. It may not be to everyone’s taste, but it has lasted the test of time. Like a bat out of hell.

103. Various Artists / Bat Head Soup : A Tribute To Ozzy / 2000. 4/5.

By the turn of the century, tribute albums had become a ‘thing’. With so many hard rock and heavy bands having risen through the ranks over the previous 25 years, almost all of them had heavy metal icons that had been an inspiration to their own music, and given that Ozzy Osbourne had been involved in the biggest band of them all of the genre, Black Sabbath, and then curated a solo career out of that, meant that he was without doubt one of those icons that all (or almost all) metal musicians felt an allegiance to.
The person who was instrumental in many of these tribute albums getting off the ground and being recorded is Bob Kulick. There are a number of tribute albums that came out during this period, of many different artists, and they all have Kulick as the instigator and organiser and producer behind them. He even plays on many of them. Prior to this album, Kulick had produced “Humanary Stew: A Tribute to Alice Cooper” and “Little Guitars: A Tribute to Van Halen”. So, he knew his way around the concept and knew what it needed in order to work. In regards to this particular album, this is a powerhouse tribute, with all of the artists involved well known for their own work during the 1980’s and 1990’s.
The most difficult part of organising a tribute on this scale for an artist such as Ozzy Osbourne is that, not only do you have to find lead vocalists who can do justice to Ozzy own unique singing style, but band members who can compete with the originals, and especially when it comes to the guitarist. For the songs chosen for this album, the original guitarists rank as some of the finest of all time in the heavy metal genre – Tony Iommi, Randy Rhoads, Jake E. Lee and Zakk Wylde. You don’t want to come in and do a half-arsed job, but neither do you want to just do a note-for-note repeat of what those guitarists played, you want to put your own signature on the song – just not so much that you destroy what is so good about the original. So, as you can see, not an easy task. But one that was taken on by Kulick and his fellow production members, and they ended up gathering a who’s who of the genre to produce this album, one that saw the light of day with the arrival of the new century in the year 2000.

The album has 11 tracks, with the majority coming from Ozzy’s career after leaving Black Sabbath. Indeed, it seems a little out of place that two of those 11 songs on the album are actually Black Sabbath songs, though I’m sure that the producers of the album would argue that they are two songs that Ozzy has continued to perform live through his whole career post-1978. And they are great songs. Everyone knows “Paranoid” and “Children of the Grave”, but surely there were so many other great songs that Ozzy has done since his split with Black Sabbath that it wasn’t necessary to revisit them?! “Children of the Grave” features band project mates Jeff Martin on vocals and Paul Gilbert on guitar, along with Scott Travis on drums, and Martin’s vocals are smooth and almost commercial in their performance of the song, while Guilbert and Travis emphasise their parts to create an enjoyable cover of this song. When it comes to “Paranoid”... I mean, what can you actually do to enhance the track? Stu Hamm and Gregg Bissonnette provide a solid rhythm for George Lynch to come in and blow his load all over the song to ensure everyone knows it is him playing guitar on it. Hey! It sounds great, so its no big deal, and Vince Neil’s vocals are not in any danger of having to break into any vocal acrobatics, so it all comes together nicely. But I’d love to have heard a couple of different songs covered.
“Suicide Solution” is covered by a band called The Flys who apparently had some traction around the time this album was conceived, and whose two brothers are a part of what is known as the First Family of Surfing... okay then... this is basically a remix of the original song, and in the long run is what I consider to be an irrelevant addition to the album. In some ways you can add the version of “Goodbye to Romance” here as well. Performed by the then-couple of Lisa Loeb and Dweezil Zappa, this acoustic ballad based cover of the... same styled ballad track... is that you would imagine it would be. Performed nicely, sung nicely... just... a nice track. Which to me misses the point of the album entirely. Yes, it proves that the song can be morphed into an acoustic guitar driven song that any market would enjoy. But amongst these other tracks and performances it seems out of place. Which, to be fair, is the same with the original song on its originally released album. But we’ll get to that down the track a little...
As to the remainder of the album, well it is fun to listen to. It opens up with “Mr Crowley”, and what an opening it is, with the perfectly played opening musical intro, and then the ominous pause, at which point Tim “Ripper” Owens comes in and SCREAMS that opening title to the song, which blows you backwards as it crashes out of the speakers. Enormous! Amazing! And then to top it off, Yngwie Malmsteen does an amazing job of reproducing the original riffing and especially solo sections of the song while still making it be a part of his own sound. It’s a great version of the original song, though Ripper does try to overperform a little when with a voice like his it isn’t necessary. This is followed by a wonderful version of “Over the Mountain”. Mark Slaughter’s vocals are spot on, retaining the energy and emotion of Ozzy’s vocals in a sterling performance, completely enhanced by Brad Gillis on guitar. Following Randy Rhoads’ tragic passing, Gillis completed the tour on the back of the “Diary of a Madman” album, so he would have played this a lot back at that time. His guitaring here is as awesome as always, backed by Eric Singer's precision drumming.
Then we have a terrific rendition of “Desire”, which is sung by one of the co-writers of the track, Lemmy Kilmister. Lemmy said before his death that he made more runs off the four songs he wrote for Ozzy’s “No More Tears” album than a dozen Motorhead albums. And Motorhead and Lemmy have done other cover versions of songs on other albums, but in the main it has been the band that has played on them, and so they manage to turn them into Motorhead songs, which is fantastic. Here however, Lemmy only sings, and the song itself is handled by other musicians. Competent musicians don’t get me wrong, with Richie Kotzen on guitar providing a very stylistic and personal rendition of lead guitar over the rhythm, which also sounds great. But Lemmy’s distinctive vocal style doesn’t quite match what is offered musically. It’s still a great version of the song, but one that could have been better either with Motorhead providing a Motorized version of the track or perhaps getting someone else to sing it. Whoever go the job of reprising “Crazy Train” was always on a hiding to nothing, but covered by the pounding drums from Jason Bonham, Dee Snider’s vocal is unique in itself, and does get better every time you listen to it. And Doug Aldrich, who was renown even at this time for being a guitarist who would always stay faithful to all guitarists original visions of the songs he plays on, puts in another great performance here to complete a great cover of this great song.
“Hellraiser” once again shows why it is one of Ozzy best ever songs, as this version melds the kings of AOR in Rainbow’s Joe Lynn Turner and Toto’s Steve Lukather and Mr Big’s Pat Torpey to provide another marvellous version of this song. Turner’s vocals are in top form here and Lukather’s guitaring is sublime. In the same way is the version here of “Shot in the Dark”, with Jeff Scott Soto’s vocals driving a smooth sound through the song, with Bruce Kulick providing a subdued performance on the guitar that understates Jake E. Lee’s original but still makes for an enjoyable interpretation. The album concludes with “I Don’t Know”, a surprisingly good version of this classic, with Jack Blades on vocals, Jeff Pilson on bass and Reb Beach riffing away on guitar. Another great combination to finish off an enjoyable release.

The plethora of tribute albums that had begun to be released in and around these years where not ones that I sought out at the time. In general, they would just... appear before me, often in searches on music downloading sites on the internet where they would pop up when searching for a particular artist. Many of them I have since purchased on CD. This album you can actually find on Bandcamp, on CD and vinyl!
So it was a little over 20 years ago that I first discovered it, and played it quite a bit. The most memorable time was on a boys trip off to visit some pubs in the Southern Highlands when I placed the CD in the stereo of the car... and the reaction from everyone in the car with that initial scream from Ripper Owens on the opening track of “Mr Crowley” Everyone jumped and said ‘holy crap! What the hell?!!’ That was a fun moment.
I do have a saying or a motto if you will when it comes to tribute albums or cover albums. And that is that these kinds of albums are fun for a while, but eventually you will want to go back to the original songs on the original albums and listen to the actual artist perform them. And that is true here once again. This is very much worth a listen, to hear how the songs are interpreted by all of those playing and singing. It is great. But you can’t beat the original versions and the original artists who created them and played on them. Ozzy is unique. So too his collection of guitarists and bass guitarists and drummers. All have their part to play. But as a true tribute to all of them, this is a worthy release.
I have spent the last couple of days reliving it once again for this podcast. I can’t say I’ve ever sat down and considered a list of my favourite tribute slash cover albums. This would rank highly if I did, I suspect. Maybe I should be doing that at the moment as well, just to pass the time...

102. Motorhead / Bastards. 1993. 4/5.

By the time 1993 rolled around, it had been a long time since a really good - and I mean a really good – Motörhead album had been released. There had been some good phases, and no doubt some good songs, but overall, albums that caught the ear and made you want to play them were short on the ground. The two albums released in the 1990’s to this point in time were especially true of this. Each had a couple of good tracks but also some very average fare. THAT WAS PARTLY TO DO WITH THE TIMES, AND PARTLY TO DO WITH THE BAND HARMONY. The band was also still in the midst of record company disputes, which led to them signing with a German label for this album called ZYX Music. The problem that arose with this was that the album was barely released outside of Germany, which made it very difficult for fans to get their hands on and for the band to promote it. It really wasn’t until the turn of the century, through another label, that the album received the wide exposure it deserved.
This was also the first album recorded by the short-lived foursome of Lemmy, Wurzel, Phil Campbell and Mikkey Dee, with Mikkey taking over fulltime from Phil Taylor from this album onwards. And the sound of this album is amazing as a result. The twin guitars, Mikkey’s brutal drumming, and Lemmy on song from the start. Everything begins to come together for the band on this album.
The onset of the grunge revolution meant that some bands changed their sound to ride the wave, in the hope to either claim popularity or to chase it. Motörhead instead released an album that stuck to what they do best while revisiting the sound that made them the band they are. An album that really rebelled against what was occurring in music around the world, and put it out under the title of “Bastards”.

The first five tracks on this album are probably the equal of any first side of any Motörhead album recorded, and I don’t say that lightly. It has the right mood and pace and riffage on each such that they are not alike but they mesh together beautifully as songs on albums should. The opening track “On Your Feet or on Your Knees” is a fast paced start with a good riff and typical Lemmy attitude, and is a great way to start the album. “Burner” is super-fast even for this band in their heyday, and the drumming from Mikkey Dee, taking the fight to the grunge era music by showing that speed and fire still has a place in the music world. “Death or Glory” joins the party on a fast and furious pace led by the thumping drums and rumbling bass of Lemmy, while Wurzel and Phil Campbell riff along in glee, trading solos that keep the song blazing and fresh. This is a real throwback to those early albums, the songs bursting out of the speakers and full of life and noise. “I Am the Sword” sounds great musically driven by Mikkey’s 2/4 drum hammering while Lemmy’s vocals rumble beneath the surface of the guitars. This is another beauty, a song that really is understated but brilliant as a result. Then comes the fire and energy of “Born to Raise Hell”, a terrific rollicking track that showcases everything that makes this band so good when they are at the top of their game.
You can’t have everything great I guess, and for me “Don’t Let Daddy Kiss Me” is a part of that here. It is the ‘ballad’ of the album, and is certainly as hard-hitting in lyrical content as for instance Alice Cooper’s “Only Women Bleed” is, so I’m not disparaging that. But the song is out of place with the whole album, especially as the closer to Side A. To this point it had been hard rocking and fast and enthralling, and then we get to the middle track of the album and it stops dead. It’s a mood killer, and it just makes me think this was mis-thought. Not to mention that Lemmy’s vocals in no way suit a song like this. Where you would place a song like this on an album like this I don’t know. Probably as a B-side to a single, but of course by this day and age singles were becoming a thing of the past. Taking the song on its own merits it is good enough. As a pointer within the framework of the album it holds things back.
“Bad Woman” opens the second side of the album and kicks thing back into gear, and even has a Jerry Lee Lewis-like piano banging away along with the crew. It’s a great song that combines all of those eras of rock together, and the energy emitted revitalises the album once again. “Liar” is another track in a similar vein. “Lost in the Ozone” is the second slow song on the album, though not so much as the previous track. It is more circumspect but still retains some of the energy that the rest of the album has. “I’m Your Man” has a bit of Soundgarden in the groove, which is the first hint on this rock album that Seattle exists. It’s a real surprise when you first hear that guitar sound on the song. It’s still a good song but the surprise continues every time I put this album on. “We Bring the Shake” is an above standard hard rock track with great singalong lyrics while “Devils” almost feels like a stadium rock anthem the way it is played and sung, and as a result it is strange that it wasn’t ever played more often in the live set. It almost has a Kiss, or at the very least Paul Stanley quality about it, and reminds me of the closing track on the Shocker soundtrack album. It’s a great way to finish the album.

The journey to securing and listening to the entire Motorhead back catalogue for me didn’t begin in earnest until almost 25 years ago. The original albums were a must, and I had “1916” and “March or Die’ from the start of that 1990’s decade, but the others were basically a mystery until I began an earnest effort to track down copies of all of the albums released and listen to them. And that wasn’t easy in a time when music was going digital and physical albums of any description became harder to locate.
I’m not exactly sure when I first got a copy of “Bastards”, but I do remember my reaction to the album when I first listened to it all the way through. I was gobsmacked. So much so that I put it on again straight away to find out if I had been mistaken. Because what I was hearing was the best Motorhead album since the original Three Amigos had broken up. And if that was the case, why the hell was this album not better known by EVERYBODY?!
My reaction today is no different to then. This is a tremendous album, combining everything that was great about the band into one album. This is where the twin guitars for me really worked for the first time. This album feels and sounds bigger, and there is no doubt that Mikkey Dee’s peerless and powerful drumming is a major contributor to this being the case. Each song has a real drive that had been missing from Motorhead for some time. Mikkey puts them back in the contest on this album. The only disappointment is “Don’t Let Daddy Kiss Me” and to a lesser extent “Lost in the Ozone”. They feel lost and misplaced on this album. You have my permission to use the skip button for them on this occasion.
While the first half of the album tends to eclipse the second half, this is one of my favourite albums by the band, in the main because the excellence is held throughout the whole of the album. There are a couple of songs that drag it back from being an absolute top shelf album, but it is by far the best album Motörhead released since their initial glory days, and the fact that it still holds up 30 years later is testament to that fact.
More difficult times were to come for the band, but the albums never stopped coming, something as fans we can all be thankful for during a time when a lot of music being released into the world was so unlistenable. You can never say that about a Motorhead album.

101. Ozzy Osbourne / Bark At The Moon. 1983. 5/5.

Turmoil in the Osbourne camp? Over the years that seems to have been part and parcel of the whole Ozzy Osbourne saga. If it wasn’t Ozzy’s substance and alcohol abuse, and the antics he got up to as a result of this, then it was the to-ings and fro-ings of his music career, the players who came in and out of his life, and the reasons why that came to pass.
After two successful ‘comeback’ albums after his dismissal from Black Sabbath, lead guitarist Randy Rhodes had been killed when a plane he was in crashed into the band’s tour bus. Apart from this traumatic event, the band then had to regroup. Brad Gillis from Night Ranger came on board to play the end of the tour, but once he had returned to his band, and bass guitarist Rudy Sarzo had returned to Quiet Riot, Ozzy was left to start again from scratch.
In order to put together what eventually became the album “Bark at the Moon”, the band needed to find a new guitarist and bass player. The guitarist came in the form of Jake E. Lee, who had flirted with bands such as Ratt and Rough Cutt before coming under the Osbourne radar. He would have a difficult job living up to the previous holder of the position in the band, but would eventually come through with flying colours. The bass player replacement came to be Bob Daisley, who had played on and written the first two albums by the band, before he and drummer Lee Kerslake were unceremoniously dumped for asking for what Osbourne management concluded were “unworkable conditions”, in regards to what they believed was a rightful share of the proceeds from those two albums. Now however, the call for help was answered.
One of the biggest oversights in regard to this album is the publishing rights, and the credits for the writing of the album. The album has always insisted on the back cover that all songs were composed solely by Ozzy Osbourne, and that always seemed to be a stretch. Jake E. Lee came out some years later and disputed this story, saying that he had been ambushed once the writing of the album had been completed, and he had recorded all of his guitars for the album. His story claims that at this point, he was presented with a contract that would nullify any claim to writing or publishing rights to the album, and that he would subsequently also not be allowed to ever mention this publicly. If he didn’t sign it, he would be fired, and his guitar parts would be replaced by another player. Given at the time he had no legal representation, he felt compelled to sign it, something that he was upset about, and with good reason. It was something that he didn’t fall for when it came to the following album.
In Daisley’s case, according to his excellent autobiography, he was hired by management to come on board and practically write the album, to run the show. With a proven track record on those first two albums, no doubt the Osbourne conglomerate could see that Daisley was the one to help produce an album that would herald in the post-Rhodes days. However, like Lee, Daisley was offered a lump sum to do the job that was asked of him, and to also therefore forego his share of writing and publishing rights, which given his dispute with the Osbournes over those first two albums he felt was an easier solution in the long run on this occasion. And so, while the album states that Ozzy wrote all of the songs, it was the partnership of Daisley and Lee that did the bulk of the heavy lifting in composing the music, and Bob who also contributed most of the lyrics. Yes, they were paid (a pittance one suspects considering the album has since sold over 3 million copies worldwide), but their contribution to the album is not officially recognised, which remains a shame. The world of business and money is rarely a fair and equitable one across the board.

They probably had no idea when it was being written and recorded, but the opening title track has become one of the most iconic heavy metal songs of all time, and is inevitably tied to Ozzy Osbourne as one of his greatest moments in a long and heralded career. The opening riff, into the opening verse, the bridge and chorus, the Jake E Lee solo through the middle, and Bob Daisley’s amazing bass line running through the whole shebang, is still as spine tingling as it was when it was first released. Who could ever forget the music video that goes with the song, and how often that was played on music video shows around the world. The howl and the exit solo and bass line is still just a dream. And what a way to be the first song in the Osbourne years without Randy on guitar. Jake steps up and leads from the front from the outset. A great opening in every respect.
The remainder of the first side of the album treads a different path. It isn’t as heavily keyboard oriented as “Diary of a Madman” and doesn’t have that same emphasis of the guitar that the previous album had. Instead, we have a more synth-oriented tracklist which is the way it was used in that era rather than going for a piano or organ based keyboards of those first two albums. “You’re No Different” is a gentler song than the opener, giving Ozzy the opportunity to show the reflective side of his vocals after the powerful performance on the opening track. The third track, “Now You See It, Now You Don’t” is the best example available as to the fact that Ozzy did not write this entire album by himself. The lyrics, written by Daisley, are quite obviously a dig at Sharon Osbourne over his previous dealings with the Osbourne conglomerate. The opening lines of “Overbearing woman makin' it so hard for me, Now you've laid it down for all to see, yeah, Can I ask a question, do you think that you can take a blow? ,This is why I always come and go, yeah” could be nothing but a direct hint of what occurred with Daisley over the previous albums. In his autobiography Bob expressed surprise that the lyrics were left unaltered and were allowed on the album at all. With this information in hand, it is hard not to laugh as you listen and sing along. This is followed by “Rock ‘n’ Roll Rebel” which is another of many tracks where Ozzy speaks to us all about himself, and closes out the first side of the album.
It is the second half of this album that I think is still so terrific, and yet these songs never come close to making a live set over the years. The opener to side two is the excellent “Centre of Eternity”. Early on this song was called “Forever” and apparently publicised as such at some concerts. The opening mirrors the bells and church organ for the start of a hymn, before breaking out into the hard riffing start of the song proper, drilled along by Tommy Aldridge’s wonderful drumming and Daisley’s rumbling bass line. This is a great song, played at a good clip and featuring everyone in the band offering something to the song.
“So Tired” follows, and that is an apt title, because this is how this song makes me feels. It is the ballad of the album, and I am no fan of the ballad. It has always sounded to me like the song that was written to be released as a single in order to draw in the fans who wanted something different. Which is what they did, though to little or no applause from the community. In the context of the album, it is out of place, but by this stage of my listening, I barely notice it anymore. It is part of the furniture, I know its there and I know I have to hear it every time I put on this album. It is for me a lot like “Fluff” off Black Sabbath’s album “Sabbath Bloody Sabbath”, it’s like call waiting music, as I wait for the next track to begin. That song is “Slow Down”, which picks up the tempo perfectly, utilising early 80’s synth in its most intended form, but starring the brilliant running bassline from Daisley that dominates the song, even through the guitar solo. Bob’s bass guitar has always been legendary, and it is at its best on this song.
The final song of the album is an underrated, often forgotten masterpiece. “Waiting for Darkness” should have had far more love than it has ever received, it should have been played at every Ozzy Osbourne concert since this album’s release, and it should be considered one of the greatest songs of his career. The mood of this track is sensational, with Don Airey’s keyboards finally moving out of the 80’s synth mode and bringing back the goth atmosphere. Ozzy’s vocals are at their absolute peak on this song, helping to create the majesty of the song. How is this not considered one of his best songs ever? Jake’s guitar solo is the crowning glory, and it is the one song on the album that truly is improved by every musician here. The vocals on the lyrics into the final bridge, which are “Who knows the answers, Is it friend or is it foe, Don't ask me questions, There are things you should not know” is spine tingling, and combines to be a brilliant end to a brilliant album.

Ozzy Osbourne was one of the first artists that I really got into when I started to discover heavy metal music, even before Black Sabbath. Those first two albums were what were circulating early in those days for me, and it was Ozzy’s amazing vocals and Randy’s guitar and Bob’s bass that really dragged me in. Their fourth album “The Ultimate Sin” was also released right at that time, so all three of those albums attacked me at the very start of my heavy metal obsession. This of course then also included “Bark at the Moon”, released two years earlier, which blended into the music cavalcade I had orbiting me at that time.
How do you clinically separate two dozen or more albums that you get at the same time, and give them all equal hearing, and learn to appreciate them individually? When you are 15 I guess it is easy. You just listen to everything all the time. And this is what I did during that first six month period of this new genre. And with Ozzy, I had two different periods, the Randy period and the Jake E Lee period, to decipher.
This album for me is as good as anything the band in all its formation ever produced. “Bark at the Moon” is a seminal track, one that is still just as good as when it was released. It was the first song I saw Ozzy perform live when I saw the band in Sydney in 1998, and is still up there with one of the greatest moments of my life. And you can’t get any more iconic than playing this song in the middle of a solar eclipse, starting the song in daylight, descending into darkness as they play the song, and then finish in daylight again. Look it up on YouTube, it’s totally worth it. And as I’ve mentioned, “Centre of Eternity” and “Slow Down” and “Waiting for Darkness” are such amazing songs, they rank alongside anything the band has done.
I had this album taped on one side of a C90 cassette back in my late high school years, with their following album “The Ultimate Sin” recorded on the other side, and once I got my drivers license I used to have this going around and around as I would drive everywhere. The two albums together are just perfect, and yes, Ozzy definitely goes through his hair metal phase in his hair and outfits at this time, but he was able to channel that mood of the day into further popularity, becoming a true icon that he could never have become as the lead singer of Black Sabbath.
Looking back retrospectively, “Bark at the Moon” was one of the best albums released in 1983, a year that had some pretty fair releases. The album did what the Osbourne clan wanted, to get past the tragic events of the previous 12 months, and get Ozzy back on top and being the centre of the music universe. It is a shame that it came at the expense of the three people who helped to get him there – touring drummer Tommy Aldridge who moved on to Whitesnake, guitarist and co-writer Jake E. Lee, who was sacked without official reason after the Ultimate Sin album, and bassist and co-writer Bob Daisley, the true force of those first three Ozzy Osbourne albums, who despite being involved for 12 years was eventually cast aside and snubbed of his contribution to resurrecting Ozzy from what could well have been immortal obscurity. We can at least thank these three highly talented musicians that that didn’t become the case.

100. Deep Purple / Bananas. 2003. 3.5/5.

The first ever Deep Purple album without Jon Lord – who would ever have thought that would happen? Don Airey is, of course, a great replacement.

Before I got this album, the word was that it was different, heading in a different direction as their most recent albums had gone. It concerned me a bit.

Of course, I then got the album, and all fears were washed away. This is another great effort from Purps, and continues their resurgence since the acquisition of Steve Morse as guitarist. The band continues to keep up with the times, almost 40 years after their formation. They do it by writing songs such that appear on Bananas – rocky, with a beat, and perfect assimilation between drums, bass, guitar and keyboards. No instrument stands out, but it would not be the same if one was taken away.

Rating : Still able to cut it in the 'modern' world. 3.5/5

99. Bruce Dickinson / Balls To Picasso. 1994. 3.5/5.

The turbulence that had swirled around the Iron Maiden camp, and in particular between the band’s leader Steve Harris, and the band’s front man Bruce Dickinson, finally came to its end on August 28, 1993, when they played their final gig on the tour supporting the album “Fear of the Dark”. At that very point, Maiden and Dickinson finally separated, even though the announcement of this occurrence had come many months beforehand, with Bruce only agreeing to stay on as tour dates had been booked. It had been a sour time for all, as it felt as though Bruce didn’t want to be there, and Harry felt that given his decision to leave he now wasn’t pulling his weight. Following this final gig, they parted ways, and went off in their own directions to discover what their next step would be.
In Bruce’s case, he had already been writing for a second solo album to follow his first, “Tattooed Millionaire” which had been released back in 1990. That album had been written and recorded on a rushed schedule, and had met with a mixed response. In beginning to compose material for a second album, Bruce had come to terms with his feelings that he needed to go out on his own and become the master of his own destiny. The material written for the “Tattooed Millionaire” album was nothing like an Iron Maiden album, and was the first sign that perhaps Bruce, much like Adrian Smith had done at that same time, decided he wanted to move in a different direction from what his band was doing. The question as to exactly how divergent Bruce’s solo career was going to move compared to his former band was something well discussed in those months after his final departure. The somewhat severe path that Adrian had taken, along with the change up that Bruce’s first solo album had offered, gave fans food for thought in this regard.
Bruce had begun those initial writing sessions while still in Iron Maiden alongside producer Keith Olsen, whose credits stretched throughout the hard rock and soft rock bands across a decade or more. While expanding on these at Olsen’s LA studio, Bruce heard another band recording, and was so impressed he actually took the band to Rod Smallwood (who was still acting as Bruce’s manager), who signed them up. Eventually Bruce decided to scrap the project with Keith Olsen, and instead found a collaborating partner by the name of Roy Z, a partnership that was to end up being the most productive of Bruce’s solo career. Roy had his own band called the Tribe of Gypsies – the same band Bruce had heard in those same studios – who became the recording and touring band for Bruce as well. From these fortuitous circumstances, Bruce had started down the path that would eventually lead him back to the top of metal music... though it was to be a circling and more winding path than Bruce perhaps initially imagined.

The opening of the album at least gave fans the chance to sigh with relief, in that the opening track was not in the style of Bruce’s first solo outing. Instead, “Cyclops” mixes that metal sound that was popular at this time with Bruce’s iconic vocal lines. It was more or less what one would have hoped for, a sound that was definitely not Iron Maiden, but still retained Bruce’s outstanding vocals. Roy Z announces himself as well with a great sounding solo lick through the middle of the song, and while it may go on a bit long, the album’s opening track promises much. “Hell No” follows on, on a similar path though with a less intense tempo and vocal stream. It’s another solid song, one that is fine to listen to without creating a massive impression. “Gods of War” is a warblefest, with lots of ‘wooooOOOHoooh” from Bruce and a much busier sound from the band. Once again Roy impresses with his guitar solo, but that tends to be the highlight of the song. This is followed by “1000 Points of LIght”, a stop start affair at best. What is obvious from the album to this point is that everything is in the slower mid tempo range, channelling the mood of the music of the time, searching for the slower, grungier, alternative sound that was being pushed in the mid-1990's as the direction that heavy metal was going, with some Latin influences that Roy and the Gypsies brought with them.
“Laughing in the Hiding Bush” again has the same tempo shift – duh-duh duh duh duh – that these middle tracks are basing themselves on, mixing the harder parts of the track along with the pieces that ease back a little. I like this song, and the way it is constructed, but I also feel it is endemic of the album itself, that the flow is halting throughout, energetic and then placid, stop and start. Bruce has stated in interviews since that he wishes that he had made this the title of the album. That sounds a bit mainstream of him, and not at all the rebellious nature that he obviously carried at that time.
“Change of Heart”. OK Bruce. NOW we have a problem. Now, some of you may have listened to my episode on Iron Maiden’s “Fear of the Dark”. And if you have, then you would know of my grave disappointment with the travesty of abhorrence that is the song “Wasting Love” that appears on that album. OK. Notch that up a bit for “Change of Heart”. Bruce and the lads here offer us an acoustically driven ballad that, maybe, some of the fans out there enjoy. I do not. Yes, I get that Bruce is trying new things here on this album, because now he is not restrained by the edict of his previous overlord. But is this really the kind of stuff Bruce was interested in producing? When I first heard this track, it was what gave me the idea of ripping out the cassette and throwing it into the back of the dark recesses of a drawer, never to be found again. The fact that this song was originally composed by Roy for his previous band Driver with bandmate Rob Rock, and that Bruce basically wrote new lyrics for it, does not make me feel any better about it. And I don’t think I have felt any different about it since. Yes, nicely composed song, beautifully played and sung. But still awful.
“Shoot All the Clowns” mixes snatches of the kind of vocal that we would like from Bruce, but then has the lower range smoothed out vocal line of the chorus, while the music has that funk sound to it, especially with Roy’s guitar in the middle of the track, before he breaks into a much more satisfying solo section. This is followed by “Fire” which is another track that has never gelled well with me. I just don’t like the way the song is sung, and I don’t like the way the music is constructed or played. On the other hand, “Sacred Cowboys” is one of the better tracks on the album. It immediately lifts the tempo and the energy, Bruce sounds like he is engaged again, and his vocal melody through the chorus makes it sound like the real Bruce once again.
Then there is the song that Bruce could never have done with Maiden, the song that you get the feeling that he left that band so that he could explore without limitations. I mean, that is what he has done with the entire album up to this point, because none of this would have worked in a Maiden environment. He has explored different directions that he could never have done within the restraints of that previous band. Now, in my opinion, some have worked, and others have not. But “Tears of the Dragon” is different. It is the blindingly obvious superior song on the album, the one that rises above all else and announces itself to you when you listen to the album. Everything about it is so much better than every other track here. Roy’s solo break in the middle. The little Latin piece that links the solo back into Bruce’s vocal. The click between the drums and bass. The energy, the passion, the drive. And of course, Bruce’s vocal, where he finally finds within himself the true power and majesty of his voice, perhaps for the first time since “Seventh Son of a Seventh Son”. This song is so far above everything else Bruce and his band does here, that it makes you wonder whether it was written in different sessions. Do you want a whole album of songs like this? No. But the passion and energy that is prevalent on this track, I believe, would have made the album better if it was distributed to all of the album in the same way.

So here we are, back in 1994, the year of no money and living in a strange new city, and as a result, it’s another album that I didn’t discover until about 12 months after it was released. And that has a few reasons behind it. Firstly, the money aspect. Secondly, the dispersion of my familial friend group with whom I had shared all of my musical discovery through my high school years, which meant that none of us were able to discover or share our music loves as easily. Thirdly, there was a bit of ambivalence on my part in regards to Bruce as his solo career at this time. By now, the mystique of “Fear of the Dark” had worn off, and I was hearing the holes in that album that a blinding love for the band Iron Maiden had perhaps shadowed for some time. And the same could be said for Bruce’s first solo release, because the blinkers were finally off on that album as well. All of this, along with other issues that were prevalent at the time, meant that this album more or less never registered with me.
Flash forward 12 months. My life feels as though it is collapsing around me as I while away my time behind the counter at the Shell Select service station in Ryde, in the west of Sydney. One of my regulars has heard the music I play when I am on my own during evening shifts, and he would often acknowledge with a nod an album I was listening to. One afternoon, he comes in, and without any preamble simply states “have you heard Bruce Dickinson’s last solo album?”. I professed that not only had I not heard it, that I didn’t know he had one out! “Oh, it’s BRILLIANT! You’ve GOT to hear it!” I assured him that I would check it out as soon as possible, and we parted ways. For the next month, every time he came in, the same conversation took place. Eventually one day, he walked in, and handed me a cassette. “There. Now. No more excuses!”
So I listened to it, without any forethought or bias, given that, to be perfectly honest, I wasn’t expecting anything outstanding given that there had been zero press about it in Australia. And over the first few listens I discovered that... I hated it. I just didn’t like it. This wasn’t the Maiden-like music that I wanted to hear! It was completely different, on another plane than I would ever have expected. And if my erstwhile regular had come in to work in those next few days, that's exactly what I would have said to him. I felt like throwing it in the drawer and forgetting about it, but knowing that he would be back, I kept going. And in doing so, I did warm to it eventually. I accepted that it was different because it HAD to be different, or else why would Bruce have moved on? And by the time the inevitable conversation occurred, I was in a much better place with this album, and was able to convey that to him.
30 years on, and the world is a far more different and enjoyable place than the dark days of 1994 and 1995. “Balls to Picasso” has been frequenting my CD player for the past couple of weeks, and I discover, again, that my feelings of this album haven’t changed that much. There are some quite reasonable songs on this album, and one spectacular one. The era that the album was released, along with the desire for a change in direction from the protagonist, does date it in that way. I continue to desire an album where the songs are faster, and get out of second gear, but that certainly isn’t the case here. As an album, it is shadowed by the releases that followed it. In recent times, one of my favourite podcasts, Uncle Steve’s Iron Maiden Zone, had an episode in which they compared “Tattooed Millionaire” and “Balls to Picasso”, an interesting discussion and one which raised many great points on both sides. In the long run, while both albums were a necessary step to get to where we are today – Bruce back with Maiden, and yet still releasing amazing solo albums – neither would be considered as an all time classic.

98. Gary Moore / Ballads & Blues, 1982-1994. 1995. 1/5.

OK, look...this is getting ridiculous. How many Blues bloody albums did this guy do? I don't know, and I've probably got all of them!!

This hits release seems to me like an excuse to re-introduce Parisienne Walkways to another generation.

No need to go any further with this. It's average. Some may like it. I am OVER it!!!

Rating : I may be poorly biased in this respect. 1/5.