On my last review (Gang of Four) my friend Randall kindly reminded me that ten years prior when he’d introduced me to them and I said I didn’t like the sound. Well, I was wrong. In previous years I’ve been spectacularly wrong about such bands as the Police, U2, and Gods know what else.
This next artist is another example of something I had made up my mind to not like only to discover I was…er…mistaken.
Disc 1939 is… …Bark at the Moon
Artist: Ozzy Osbourne
Year of Release: 1983
What’s up with the Cover? Is Ozzy infected with lycanthrope here, or is it a werewolf who is infected by Ozzy?
Based on the hair, I’m going to go with the latter.
How I Came To Know It: I first heard this record when my brother bought it new. Back then, I didn’t love it. Frankly, I was a bit hung up on Dio at the time, and in 1983 it felt like when it came to Ozzy vs. Dio, you had to pick one, and I had picked Dio.
Fast forward several decades to an older and wiser me who has come to realize the whole Ozzy/Dio thing is a false dichotomy. You can enjoy both! Even so, I wouldn’t have gone there except my buddy Ross was parting with his CDs and I picked up a couple Ozzy records.
Neither one was “Bark at the Moon” but collectively they got me hooked, and before you knew it I was down in the record store buying this album.
How It Stacks Up: I have four Ozzy albums. Of those four, “Bark at the Moon” comes in at #4. Hey, something has to be last.
Ratings: 3 stars
It was admittedly weird to have a 40+ year gap between first hearing a record and then giving it a second chance. I had to overcome a lot of hard-wired bias to get there, but I’m glad I did. “Bark at the Moon” is a worthy entry in the early eighties pantheon of metal.
“Bark at the Moon” is Ozzy’s first record without Randy Rhoads. For me, overall it is a step down in quality in terms of songwriting, but Ozzy is still Ozzy and new guitarist Jake E. Lee is excellent. There is plenty of great content here, and while I’m going to note some of the warts, they aren’t so unsightly as to wreck the record.
Things launch with a bang, with the title track providing that insistent forward lean guitar riff that was a signature of Ozzy’s early solo career. It isn’t quite speed metal, but future speed metal bands were no doubt clutching their copies of the album and imagining a faster future.
Also, werewolves are cool. Not vampire cool, but pretty damned cool all the same.
Later eighties metal tended to lose low end power in the production, but this is the golden age of guitar crunch. It still soars, but the whole record has some great bottom end thump. A couple of times I paused the album because I thought something was wrong with my car. Nope – just the shake, rattle and roll generated from heavy metal in its early heyday.
Being a recent convert, I’m not an Ozzy aficionado when it comes to Randy Rhoads – I know I love him when I hear him – but Lee is no slouch, and drops some fine solo work on this record, fast and technical without sounding mechanical.
Ozzy’s signature voice makes everything sound interesting. He has a voice that can deliver hard edged attitude, but with a soulful hurt around the edges. He sounds like a veteran of the psychic wars, weary but filled with interdimensional wisdom. Ozzy has seen some shit, and he pours that openhearted angst into every song, fast or slow.
Songs like “Rock ‘N’ Roll Rebel” feel a lot like Saxon and borrow from that “party with the outcasts” kind of fist pumping anti-establishment chant style. No one does it quite like Saxon, but Ozzy’s foray into the style are solid and took me back to my own days of denim-clad iconoclasm.
On “Centre of Eternity”, Ozzy starts with some Gregorian chanting, church bells and organs. It is absolutely in the metal vibe, and the chugging guitar riffs that take over a few bars in make complete thematic sense. This is another frenetically paced tune, with Ozzy giving you a guided tour of the vast spaces of the universe…or just inside his own mind. Probably both.
“So Tired” is the album’s second single; a power ballad that plods in places (the guitar solo on this one was just OK) but Ozzy’s vocals are so pure and emotive that you’re drawn in and forgive a song that otherwise could’ve had a “Muppet Show” vibe.
The lyrics on the record are great when it is Ozzy riffing in his own head about the nature of the universe, but at other times they can tend toward worn cliché. Case in point, “Slow Down” which features the line “Slow down your haste is making waste”. Yech. Cringe. The song is a bit of an earworm but that doesn’t make it the strongest entry.
This record has two bonus tracks that were originally single B-Sides, “Spiders” and “One Up the “B” Side”. “One Up the “B” Side” is a hilarious decision to make the track on the B side about…tracks on the B side. Cool.
“Spiders” was hokey and forced and reminded me of the other early bias I had against Ozzy as a teenager: that he was the poor man’s Alice Cooper. Back then (as now) I was a huge Alice Cooper fan and felt like Ozzy was stealing part of that spotlight.
Like with Gang of Four, and Ozzy himself, I now realize that is silly. Ozzy brought his own style to topics of horror and suspense and did a fine job of it. Maybe not on “Spiders” but on “Bark at the Moon” and many more for sure.
I’m glad I gave this record a second chance and look forward to my continuing re-education on the second phase of Ozzy’s brilliant career.
Best tracks: Bark at the Moon, You’re No Different, Centre of Eternity One Up the B Side
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