vote
8.5
- Band:
Ozzy Osbourne - Duration: 00:57:07
- Available from: 17/09/1991
- Label:
-
Epic
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Why, arrived at the sixth studio album, Ozzy Osbourne decides to call the second album with Zakk Wylde “No More Tears”? There are several things to say, before analyzing what, on balance, is one of the best solo career albums of the former Black Sabbath.
Meanwhile, there is a first and after, in the life of our dear John Michael Osbourne. The evil ones will say that there is a first Sharon and a after Sharon, the kinder ones that there is a first Randy and a after Randy, but we prefer to believe that there is a first fact of the excesses that made Ozzy a Rockstar recognized for his madness, and a after more mature man, while always remaining a showman in the balance between the clownesco and the temptations of alcohol.
Between 1990 and 1991, Ozzy in fact tries to fight his need to dissociate himself from reality through ethanol: he will often say that “No More Tears” was the first album he has ever recorded by Sobrio.
With a solo career rather than started, a new guitarist like Zakk Wylde perfectly integrated into the band after “No rest for the Wicked” and many good intentions, the singer begins to see reality without the protective curtain of the substances, and it seems almost that he is afraid of it.
Perhaps it is also for this reason that “No More Tears” is called this way: the iconic cover with his photography, from whose back an angelic wing appears immediately presupposing a change of attitude, partly already started with the previous album. Also from interviews of the time, we know that the specialized magazines had scattered around a rumor – then denied by the Madman – that this would have been the last solo ozzy album, so we can only imagine the spasmodic waiting that fans felt.
Waiting for widely rewarded, because “No More Tears” is among the most beautiful records to which Osbourne has ever worked, not to mention the fundamental help of Zakk Wylde and Randy Castillo, but – above all – of Lemmy Kilmister, who signs together with the former Black Sabbath four texts of the disc, including the iconic “Mama I'm Coming Home” and “Hellraiser”. In a sense, since “Mr. TinkerTrain”, it is noted that that vein of gloomy that crossed the solo Ozzy discs emerges even more powerful: the bass no longer hidden behind the guitars, the even more dark and heavy distortion and the Jon Sinclair keyboard that colors most of the songs.
Loaring it at almost thirty -five years later, you notice the quality of the arrangements, the thousand facets given by the guitar of Wylde and the bass of Bob Daisley (replaced in the videos by Mike Inez, which also played on disk tours), the incredible variety of traces, with the ballad “Time After time” and that jewel of “Zombie Stomp”, halfway between Hair, Metal and Heavy classic. A more mature, adult Ozzy, who in the interviews declared that for the first time for years he had not been stressed by his manias of perfectionism, knowing he had a band of people behind he loved, while flirting with the former Black Sabbath for a possible reunion that would then materialize a few years later. There is also no lack of cheerful moments such as “Avh”, which Ozzy will tell in an interview to be the acronym for “Aston Villa Highway”, obviously dedicated to the football team of which it will always be a fan to the end, while the track that gives the name to the disc could be a bigino of how to make an iconic song that remains in the lead without wanting to, also thanks to the spectacular video that ends with a very young Kelly Osbourne dressed. from Angioletto.
The importance of this album is also completed by the wonderful production signed by Duane Baron and the mixing entrusted to the golden hands of Bob Ludwig: in a certain sense, listening to it well, you can already glimpse that seed that will blossom in the very first Nu Metal and which preludes the era of the turning point of nineties of MTV. Although the same year of the Nirvana “Nevermind” explosion, “No More Tears” was one of those last vagites of old school Heavy Metal, carrying all his load of emotions and contradictions that has always distinguished the Madman's career.
In short, if you have just discovered the Heavy Metal and you are reading this review, we can only advise you to listen to this album, in the perfect of the perfect metal of the eighties and the modern turning point of the next decade. If, on the other hand, you bought it in 1991 and you are here to read due to the effect of nostalgia, we invite you to dust off the most mature disc of Ozzy Osbourne, trying to dry the tears and go on, as he has always taught us to do.
Daniel D`Amico for SANREMO.FM
