OZZY OSBOURNE — No Rest For The Wicked (review)

OZZY OSBOURNE — No Rest For The Wicked album cover Album · 1988 · Heavy Metal Buy this album from MMA partners
4.5/5 ·
Kingcrimsonprog
Ozzy Osbourne’s No Rest For The Wicked was his fifth studio album as a solo artist and was released in 1988. This was the first Ozzy album to feature Zack Wlyde who replaced Jake E Lee on guitar duties.

Zack has a very different guitar style to either Randy’s or Jake E Lee’s; his playing is full of pinch harmonics, squeals and other little flourishes that make his playing different to each of Ozzy’s previous guitarists, on top of that he delivers a more heavy metal style of riff more frequently and as a consequence the direction of this album changed.

After the death of original guitarist Randy Rhodes, Ozzy started heading in a more commercial direction, but No Rest For The Wicked reverse the trend with a very rock orientated sound musically and much heavier production sound.

No Rest For The Wicked primarily contains straight up hard and heavy numbers, with a much less commercial direction than the previous two albums and as such hasn’t dated just as badly as they have. Surprisingly; give the increased heaviness of the album, it sold very well and was a large commercial and critical success.

The album is full of strong and well written music, including the excellent ‘Miracle Man,’ ‘Breaking All The Rules,’ and ‘Crazy Babies.’ The whole album is fairly consistent and the majority of the material is of that same high quality.

If you enjoy big riffs and bold guitar solos then this is a superb album, the only real flaw you could level at it is that it may be a bit repetitive, certainly so if you don’t like pinch harmonics. For everyone else, this shouldn’t put you off however and I highly recommend you give the album a shot.

Overall, No Rest For The Wicked is one of the better Ozzy albums out there, the material is strong, consistent and fairly heavy. Overall, it is a pretty essential buy for fans.
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