Ozzy Osbourne
No Rest For The Wicked

THE REVIEW

Our Ozzy, after the great loss of Randy Rhoads and the advent of Jake E. Lee with 2 decent albums like "Bark At The Moon" and "The Ultimate Sin", decides to change his guitarist, not only to renew his band but especially to change his musical genre, which with Jake had become Hard Rock, leaving behind the metal of "Blizzard of Ozz" and "Diary Of A Madman." Ozzy therefore decides to call upon the twenty-one-year-old guitarist Zakk Wylde. Ozzy said, "it's a big leap from playing in a bar-band to coming to play solo with me", regarding his new guitarist.

In 1988, he released this album, which makes a huge change from his previous rock albums. Among the most beautiful songs, we definitely find "Miracle Man" (the only song from this album that Ozzy will continue to play in his live shows and concerts afterwards, except in "Just Say Ozzy"), "Bloodbath In Paradise", "Fire In The Sky" (really very beautiful and deep, almost moving), and "Tatooed Dancer". Decent instead are "Devil's Daughter", "Crazy Babies", "Breaking All The Rules", "Demon Alcohol", and "Hero". In the remastered version, we also find the b-side and ballad "Liar", which is not very meaningful or convincing, and the live version of "Miracle Man".

We can say that in this album, Ozzy sings really badly, and we might define his voice as transitioning between the 80s and 90s. The female choruses inserted in some songs are hardly inspiring. They weren't needed. As for Zakk, his performance isn't very exciting, but he is forgiven both for his little experience with a new band and for what his future will be. Bob Daisley on bass and Randy Castillo on drums are good. Score 3 for the dullness of this album that includes cliché songs arranged somewhat hastily by Ozzy. Fortunately, Ozzy will recover, pulling out of his hat the masterpiece album "No More Tears"...