Black Label Society
Shot To Hell

Starting from the amusing and provocative cover, the latest album by the highly inspired Zakk Wylde and his Black Label Society convinces, it convinces even more than its predecessor "Mafia", a transitional album without infamy and without praise that summed up in a mix between the band's assailant and more "heavy" beginnings to the southern melodies of fundamentally less heavy albums like "Hangover Music Vol.4", this "Shot To Hell" gathers what was sown with "Mafia" and improves it in an amazingly evident way.

First positive note: the presence of many ballads and the good use of the piano in the latter, among the album's highlights we cannot ignore the paced and heartbreaking piano ballad "The Last Goodbye", a song that leaves aside the rough hard n' heavy pieces that make up a good part of "Shoot To Hell", to focus on the emotions that a voice like Zakk's can evoke, intense and strong emotions, but those emotions that transmit since you have been on the world heavy rock scene as a protagonist for years and not those fake-emotions from the first pop band climbing the charts and put on rotation on MTV (or worse on All Music), this music is passion, an adjective that has nothing to do with the music business (since Zakk, it has always been known, often moves from one label to another to always have a lot of freedom of thought and composition, this time we are under Roadrunner's wing, a spot-on choice, old friend).

But let's return to the music, still on the topic of melody and less "heavy" episodes it is obviously a must to listen to the concluding "Lead Me To Your Door", a piece that perhaps represents the highest compositional level of the album, here again, we deal with a piano ballad, possibly even more emotional than the already mentioned "The Last Goodbye". Excellent are the soft and relaxed (and relaxing) atmospheres of "Nothing's The Same" where Zakk sings calmly and intensely, here again many and many emotions, the solo is beautiful. As for the heavier and more impactful episodes, the story changes, here we have the old Zakk, and his heavy riffing endowed with an intense groove (a quality in common with his brotherly friend, the late Dimebag Darrell), I'm talking about the very successful opener "Concrete Jungle" where one also notices the interesting vocal effects used by Zakk (a very strange singer as he's always halfway between the rowdy street rock and the timbre of Ozzy Osbourne) besides the excellent solo and guitar work. It hits hard on religion (in full Slayer-style) with "Black Mass Reverends", a nice opening riff and engaging chorus. Particularly good is the introduction in full southern-style of "Blacked Out World" which explodes into its repeated anthemic chorus, thanks to Zakk's ungraceful and rowdy voice, heavy and very precise drumming, a not long but truly effective solo, same goes for the similar "Give Yourself to Me", one feels a bit surprised a certain attitude with the latest Soulfly of Max Cavalera listening to the riff of "Faith Is Blind", a thrashy-style song full of a killer groove that will cause devastation under the stage of the Gods Of Metal 2007, besides Zakk, the other members, particularly drummer Jhonn De Servio, impress and have a good performance.

In conclusion, as you might have guessed, the album in question really took and surprised me, for this I decided to give it full marks because I consider it among the best albums of 2006, especially for the slow songs. These 13 tracks perfectly represent the pure Zakk-style: hard rock, heavy metal, rock, southern rock it doesn't matter! What matters is that it is a convincing album played with heart and commitment by one of the most important musicians of today's hard n' heavy scene, a great comeback and a great confirmation. We're waiting for you on Ozzy's new full-length, Zakk, until then I will continue to wear out the stereo with this album!

Recommended to everyone, fans and non-fans!