PRIDE, GLORY AND A FEW SHADOWS / ZAKK WYLDE (1991 - 1997)

Nowadays is hard to think of ZAKK WYLDE without OZZY OSBOURNE around, or away from his well known band BLACK LABEL SOCIETY, besides some other projects and collaborations, but there was a time during the nineties when he got really famous at first, only to go through almost the complete opposite soon after. Those circumstances made him being involved in what is likely to be his most personal, introspective and musically interesting phase of his career. Maybe not the best or the one which describes him best as a musician and songwriter, but the most remarkable when it comes to penning songs.


Needless to say, that period highlighted in the title encompasses a busier agenda by Zakk than the one which is actually going to be told in detail, with stuff alongside Ozzy, for example, but that side of his work is not what I want to focus on, but on PRIDE & GLORY and his work as a solo artist alone.


On with the show.









PRIDE & GLORY has to be one of  my most listened to albums of the second half of the nineties, and one there's always time to come back to, even if not as often as in the past. Time goes on, you get to know new stuff (and even more today) and tastes change, although remaining eager to listen to an specific album after all this time is what matters, and even more if you don't do it for the sake of nostalgia or the memories it brings back, which in this case are many, but due to sheer musical quality. The latter is also undeniable.

The short lived namesake band was my introduction to someone who's been (and still is) one of the characters I've always looked up to the most in my heavy metal life, the one of a kind american guitarrist Zakk Wylde, born JEFFREY PHILLIP WIELANDT (January the 14th, 1967). In all truth, I even began listening to him before than I did with his mentor Ozzy, someone who needs no introduction. And I said one of a kind because he may be and admired household name, but he also has (given what I've read as the yeas passed) a lot of naysayers, either because of his work as a guitar player, his music or his (a tad excessive) public persona, prone to make heads turn and leave no one indifferent, although this is something that has been reduced during the last years, mostly after a serious health wake up call around 2009. He's always been completely devoted to his craft and really respectful towards the legacy of the musicians he admires, even borderlining on adoration (so much that one of his kids was named HENDRIX HALEN MICHAEL RHOADS, and another one SABBATH PAGE, while the remaining two seem to own, let's say, more regular names), and at this moment he is dedicated to play his deceased (to say something) great buddy DIMEBAG DARRELL's role in the current tribute reincarnation of PANTERA, and, to the best of my knowledge, he does it keeping a low profile and as humbly as he can. Way to go.



Young Zakk hanging out with boss Ozzy




But this is from the time when Zakk was very young and, although he's always been kinda brutish, he was wild during these years, and that's how he looked like. I remember the first time I knew who he was, when I saw a picture of his, in a magazine, playing for Ozzy, and the caption was that, after Ozzy had said he was going to stay sabbatical for a while (and maybe for good), Zakk was going to create a new band which was going to be called Pride & Glory. He wasn't leaving Ozzy, but he did not want to be sidelined for around three years, which was the minimum time it was going to take Ozzy to tour again. I did not care about the actual news but that picture of his was one of those that you see and you, still being a kid, think I want to be like that guy.

I started listening to said band soon after, when it began to get some airplay in a radio show which back in the day had its spot in the spanish radio station CADENA 100 and which was called EMISIÓN PIRATA, and everything combined led me to get interested in Ozzy's music and to eventually become a great fan of the incomparable guitarrist RANDY RHOADS, as I talked about on TOP 10 GUITAR PLAYERS (where some more stuff about Zakk can be read).



Playing live with the Madman




Zakk has a very long career and has been involved in many different things, besides his work with Ozzy, but Pride & Glory might be his most personal and original work to date, and one of the most crafted, mostly given the relative simplicity of many of the songs he's written for Black Label Society, his longest lived band. This is a southern tinged heavy metal and hard rock power trio (despite the fact that Zakk, being from New Jersey, is supposed to have little in common with that south that comes to mind when you listen to the record or take a look at its cover, at least in principle) with some more instruments than expected (Zakk not only plays the guitar, besides taking everyone by surprise with a really competent and suitable voice for this kind of music, and there's also the SEATTLE SYMPHONY in three songs) which pretty much smells of grass and the countryside. And of beer. It's like mixing BLACKFOOT, LED ZEPPELIN, BLACK SABBATH and even PANTERA together, and Zakk's own work with Ozzy, and see what the outcome is.

Pride & Glory were born in 1991, with Zakk plus the rhythm section from the well known american glam metal ensemble WHITE LION (JAMES LOMENZO as the bass player and GREG D'ANGELO on drums), although they were still called LYNYRD SKINHEAD and they just played live and only songs from other artists. But they also recorded two songs for a couple of guitarrists compilations, with FARM FIDDLIN', a long and remarkable country metal instrumental (?), standing out. But anyway, both songs made it onto those compilations under Zakk's name, and not as Pride & Glory. Apparently, the intention was to create a southern rock inspired band, and not something whose sound could be linked, just like that, to the axeman of a heavy metal singer like Ozzy. But if you ask me, I have to say that, while that southern influence is obvious, anyone who had listened to the two albums that Zakk had already recorded with Ozzy (mostly the successful NO MORE TEARS, also from 1991), his guitar playing is quite recognizable here. Because Farm Fiddlin' is not only about blues and country, but also about heavy metal and shredding, and there are some licks which Zakk had already used, maybe with more subtlety, on said Ozzy album.




Lomenzo, Wylde and Tichy




By the beginning of 1994, when they released their only record, D'Angelo was replaced by BRIAN TICHY, who recorded the album and stayed with the band. The moniker also changed, to Pride & Glory. P&G saw the light of day on the 7th of June, 1994, was produced by RICK PARASHAR (although one song was produced by the band itself, together with a certain GREG GOLDMAN) and was issued by the mighty american label GEFFEN. All songs were written by Wylde but I don't know where the album was recorded. The cover shows a picture (called WAITING TILL THE COWS COME HOME, taken from the 1985 exhibition WOMEN IN AMERICA PHOTOGRAPHY, and according to Wikipedia was taken by someone called GALE WRAUSMANN) in which some cows graze close to an old house which looks abandoned. This, together with the jam session style of some of the sections in some songs (the production was minimal, with the band recording as many live takes as possible) gives the album a very organic flair, and the feeling that the ALLMAN BROTHERS had become metal.



Pride & Glory




As I said before, the instruments used go beyond the usual bass, guitar and drums pattern, with Zakk making his debut as a singer (although he had already sung in one of those previous two songs, a cover of the blues BABY, PLEASE DON'T GO) and trying piano, banjo, mandolin and acoustic guitar on some songs, plus the involvement of the aforementioned orchestra (conducted by PAUL BUCKMASTER).


And next, the music.




LOSIN' YOUR MIND opens with one of the two banjo showings, with which the main riff is played, being played on electric guitar afterwards, despite said banjo still being present while the whole band plays. This song was one of the album's singles and is quite representative of the whole album concerning its spirit and some of the things already mentioned, but while still a good song, is not among the best or heaviest ones (the banjo thing could have been reduced to the initial trick), although it has sections that make clear what comes first here, such as the chorus or Zakk's solo, after a brief halt, where his guitar is severely punished and Zakk makes good use of some of his tricks and effects.

It seems to be about addictions and, regarding the album's spirit which I mentioned above, I recall seeing the videoclip and they where playing on a riverside, wearing bell bottoms and all that, and surrounded by a really country atmosphere. Sprig chewing and TOM SAWYER, together with HUCKELBERRY FINN, behaving mischievously, were the only things missing. Just what the front cover hints at. The most rural side of the south of the United States, I guess.

Once you start, just can't stop.



I like HORSE CALLED WAR better, another one of the singles and the first song by the band I listened to. Someone at school lent me a videotape with one random HEADBANGERS BALL on it (that metal show which was aired on MTV) and the video, together with other interesting stuff, and I watched it so many times during that summer that I rendered the tape almost useless. Good proof of the improvised nature of the recording is the beginning of the song, because between some guitar feedback and adjustments from both drums and bass guitar, the musicians spend the first thirty seconds seemingly trying to reach an agreement to begin the song, until Tichy's drumsticks indicate enough is enough and the rocky and awesome guitar riff takes the spotlight, stretching and shrinking (as Zeppelin's famous BLACK DOG did), whenever the song demands it to, leaving also room for Zakk's usual pinch harmonics. The refrain calms the procedures down a little but Zakk batters his guitar once again during a solo which lasts more than forty seconds, and it all ends up with Tichy's double bass kicks. Being Zakk a self respecting christian catholic, or so I think, the song seems to be about what he considers other religions which preach the end, or something similar. Who knows? This is a scorcher no matter what.

All you Jesus freaks you kill yourselves, all in the name of god.



James Lomenzo




Pride & Glory get heavier in SHINE ON, one of the longest and hardest hitting songs on the album. The slow instrumental beginning is deceptive and, right away, not one but two harmonica riffs show up, mimicking the guitar ones, very much in the vein of Black Sabbath's THE WIZARD. The second guitar riff can also be listened to in the verses, joined by a cowbell which is almost louder than the drums themselves and, as in the previous song, the refrain slows things down a little. More harmonica, another killer guitar solo (a constant, as you can see) and, just when you thought it was all over, along comes the best part. A new riff opens an instrumental and seemingly unscripted jam which allows Zakk to make his instrument bleed while Lomenzo's bass does its part too, and in a very loud fashion. The lyrics could be about a broken relationship but I'm not sure.

I'm the judge. I'm the jury. I'm gonna put your ass where you belong.



It's been mentioned that Zakk Wylde is quite the character, and only someone like him could open a presumably romantic song (romantic in his own particular way, for this is about someone who, after all the hardships, expects to find someone worthy of spending the life with when coming back home) like LOVIN' WOMAN, with a burp. When the album was released, P&G played in that year's Donington MONSTERS OF ROCK festival, in England, which was the most important heavy metal event of the time, and since its inception in the early eighties. And I remember another Headbangers Ball show, for which everything had decamped to that festival on the occasion of that year's edition and, while its host VANESSA WARWICK (the then missus of THE ALMIGHTY's RICKY WARWICK) was interviewing the band on the festival grounds, Zakk, beer in hand, burped in such a way that, had not been already blue, the stupified journalist's hair would have been dyed some other weird colour.

Filth aside, this song is a light tune, led by the acoustic and the mandolin, which could pass as an attempt to write a ballad, but which turns out to be too lively and optimistic to be tagged as such. As expected, it has a great electric guitar solo. Apart from all that, a southern and country atmosphere with some harmonica touches, plus someone lik rough Zakk's increasingly surprising and moving voice, can be found here.

Whether your grass is green or blue child, I'll walk the mile.



HARVESTER OF PAIN is a very good song, even if it's not on par with its own beginning, with that huge, isolated, guitar riff (pinch harmonics galore) which, after being played fourfold, morphes into a sombre song, organ included, whose secret weapon is a magnificent refrain. Even at the risk of repeating myself I insist, watch out for Zakk's vocals. Anyone who knows him by association with Black Label Society, older and channeling his own Ozzy, forget about that. This is much better. The lyrics are very good too, being an intimate look at the pain and the uncertainty which taking part in an armed conflict (with no intention whatsoever) brings. Such conflict has to be the American Civil War, because Zakk sings about being caught between the blue and the gray.

Mama I done killed a man, was told he wasn't part of the plan.



Brian Tichy




And we reach the first song with the involvement of the Seattle Symphony strings, which is THE CHOSEN ONE, one of the longest tracks and, to yours truly, the most special one. Neither the best, maybe, nor the heaviest, but only the most special song. But I am doubtful concerning who is the person this song is supposed to be dedicated to. Wikipedia explains this is a tribute to Zakk's dad (whom I believe Zakk dedicated BLS's third album, 1919 ETERNAL, from 2002, to, named after the year his father was born), WWII veteran who, according to said media, would die soon after the album's release, although something like that does not coincide with what can be read all over the Internet about Zakk's dad passing back in 2009, no less. Neither with the fact that the lyrics seem to speak in the past tense of the person the song is talking about, when talking about big shoes to fill (meaning the emptiness left by the loved ones when they die), but even Wikipedia says that Zakk's father had not died yet and he'd even listened to the song (Zakk laughed about his father disliking it very much). So I do not know what to think. Maybe it was dedicated to his dad, only from the perspective of someone already gone (maybe that's why he did not like it; just kidding), or perhaps it was dedicated to a grandad. Or who knows, maybe that sentence about the shoes was related to a physical absence instead of death, although this seems unlikely. What Wikipedia says makes sense, but it all amounts to nothing when you realize Zakk's dad died around fifteen years later. A fictional story maybe? Who knows.

Anyway, this is a song woth many nuances and where Wylde's songwriting skills on this record most likely peak.

Lomenzo's isolated bass line starts the song, and the whole band joins in pure Sabbath fashion. The tune drags itself, alternating a clean guitar with the previous riff during the heavy moments until the first bridge (very good) begins and so do the strings, providing the song with a solemn, melancholic and even military flair, paving the way for the outstanding chorus which has Zakk forcing his throat to the max. It's all the same during the second verse, already with the strings at full throttle, and beware of the singer's scream at 2'48'' (you left some big shoes to fill), because is really difficult to be listened to without having chills running down your spine. After this second verse there's still the first opening bass line, some feedback and an enormous guitar solo, lasting more than a minute, which seems to mimic one of the verses but without vocals.

Impressive.

I'm so glad I was the chosen one.



Strings show up again in the slow SWEET JESUS, which is an actual proper ballad, with piano, some percussion and a clean guitar solo. I do not dislike it, for is quite moving and Zakk's voice stands out once again, but a piano driven song is not the reason why I listen to heavy music. I love piano, but some other way, on its own. This might be my least favourite song on the record, but is short anyway. The lyrics could be about a crisis of faith.

My eyes have gone blind, for the past I just can't find.



Back into action with TROUBLED WINE, whose title leaves no doubt concerning the subject at hand (alcohol as both cause and solution of any problem). Just like in The Chosen One, an opening and isolated line, guitar's this time around, becomes the main riff of the song. There's another riff, as thick as the previous one, during the sung sections, which shows Wylde  make good use of the slide. The brilliant refrain features some acoustica guitar as well, and the subsequent solo has a first section, played with the bottleneck, and a second one with wah wah pedal, etc, all in a really rough fashion and with Tichy taking the spotlight at the end of it. A very festive song.

A little sip, a little bit's all ya need. I'm always here for you.



MACHINE GUN MAN stresses the southern scent of the album, with acalm guitar and some organ, and I guess it could have been written by LYNYRD SKYNYRD had not been Zakk who he is, because this song gets furious as well (with those harmonics standing out), although in a more controlled way. It seems to deal about someone who's up for no good, filled with hatred due to the uncertain future (or no future at all) that awaits him.

What fate awaits the machine gun man?



CRY ME A RIVER is a likeable and lively tune led by the acoustic guitar and some licks on the electric, which gets heavy during the bridge thanks to a simple and powerful riff. The refrain calms things down again and the best part is the guitar solo, mostly during its second and killer section, which comes after the first acoustic one. This is about getting that one special person you were with back, so that everything can be fine again.

Won't ya please help me to my feet once again?



Southern Zakk


 

TOE'N THE LINE was the longest song (around seven minutes) on the album when it first came out, but it's been split in two different tracks in subsequent reissues, being its final section another different song called AFTERTHOUGHT. It could perfectly be the album's heaviest moment, mostly due to an opening riff wich similar to a bull in a china shop (after Tichy's little showing with his drumsticks), but its extensive running time allows it to display much more than that. In fact, during each verse there's more different riffing and Zakk's filtered voice. Later on, after a slower and a tad dramatic part, plus another country one with another drumsticks moment, there is the usual guitar solo, and a long one, hovering over the previous riffs. 

Lastly, and very much in the vein of what was heard in Shine On, this song has it second and shorter part (Afterthought), in which I'd say Zakk maybe wants to pay his very own particular homage to JIMI HENDRIX. So you all know what you are up to, which is a new display of instrumental virtuosity over Lomenzo's bass guitar, as in a jam session once again.

The sentence that gives the song its name makes reference to abide by the rules (mostly unwillingly), but I don't know whether this is about something physical or just mental.

It's my obsession, it's a truckload of aggression.



FOUND A FRIEND is the other song in which some peculiarites depending on the edition arise, for it was in the first edition but not in some later ones, despite being on the back cover and being absent on the bonus disc as well. In some others is on that second disc. It's a moving southern ballad (with too much organ for my taste) which I've become more drawn to as time has gone by, although it remains one of my least favourite songs on the album. It could be Pride & Glory's answer to Lynyrd Skynyrd's SIMPLE MAN. And I know I could be getting annoying with my vindication of Zakk's singing, but that's the best thing here and it happens to be shocking if you keep his later career in mind. There's a tad forgettable solo with slide and the song drags a little with those dispensable backing vocals at the end. As its name suggest, this is about the importance of friendship.

Feeling like I'm hanging from the gallow.



In a surprising move, what's next is another ballad, and a very dramatic and touching one, like the great FADIN' AWAY is, third and last song with strings, which I think deals with mourning and the distress thinking about death might mean. This is another piano driven song with Zakk's great voice (sorry), and those strings showing up in the first refrain (which is wonderful) and never leave. The only guitar in here is a short and nice acoustic solo which also features some military percussion. An amazing song which makes me forget, at least for a few minutes, what I said about piano songs when I talked about Sweet Jesus. Zakk Wylde might be a first class boor, but he's got his moments.

Where the daisies are growing over top of me, where is it that I go?



The closing track, HATE YOUR GUTS, is a hick banjo driven song (solo included) with acoustic guitar and some percussion about the sheer repugnance which the narrator feels towards someone (maybe an old girlfriend?) who did him wrong in the past. The lyrics are really loutish (Just when ya think ya had enough, , they'll bend ya over and fuck ya once again!) and I remember reading an interview in which Zakk told he had played this song to Ozzy and the singer asked him about what he was thinking to include something like that on the album, for it would never get any airplay. And what for?

What's mine is mine, what's yours is mine and that's the way it's gonna be.



Fancy a beer?





Let's talk about the bonus tracks, very much below the overall quality of the album itself.



THE WIZARD is, for sure, a cover of Sabbath's famous hit which appeared on their very first album. It had already been a bonus track in Japan, as usual, and it does not impress me very much, to be honest. A little bit hurried, with too many effects on the guitar and worse and less heavy than the one Zakk himself would do with ZAKK SABBATH many years later.

Demons worry when the wizard is near.



TORN & TATTERED is kinda similar to Found A Friend, being another slow song, acoustic this time and with some piano, about someone who is in suffering. It is nice, but it does not add a great deal to the whole thing and is too long.

Gonna tell you a story now, about a broken man.



Every song on this second disc seems to be linked to a previous one, and the next track, very much in the vein of The Wizard, is a cover of Zeppelin's IN MY TIME OF DYING which could have fared better. It's not as long as the original one (is very long anyway) and despite being better than the Sabbath cover, I don't think the overall southern flair and Zakk's voice are what songs like these demand. Zakk ends up engaging himself in a raging guitar solo, but all things considered, a forgettable cover. And I'd love to say otherwise.

All I want for you to do is take my body home.



Indeed. Troubled beer




THE HAMMER AND THE NAIL is Hate Your Guts part two, but a trick like that only works once and you can tell this is a throwaway song. Funny atmosphere, banjo and little else in a song whose lyrics I don't understand.

I just realized that I bought a dancin' song.



Surprisingly, the best thing on a tolerable disc could be a sombre piano cover of THE BEATLES' COME TOGETHER.

He got hair down to his knee.





And I've noticed that some digital versions have a decent acoustic version (with some drums and harmonica) of Machine Gun Man, although I liked it better when Zakk played it on his own, back in the day, only on acoustic guitar. And also a studio version of MOTHER MARY, taken from the recording sessions. They usually played this song live, or at least they did it in that Donington festival, and it would eventually end up on SONIC BREW, BLS's first album (1999), but changed into something almost completely new (lyrics as well) to the point it has little to do with this song. This song is announced here as the alternative one, when it should be the original, for it existed long before the BLS one, unless is different songs (I don't think so) we are talking about and I did not know. Not bad, lively and hard rocking, but with some unnecesay piano touches during the bridge. I have no certaintu regarding the original lyrics.



I hate your guts



















By the end of 1994 James Lomenzo quit the band days before P&G had to embark on some dates in the States, but Zakk managed to have his old buddy JOHN DE SERVIO (with whom he'd play again in the future) on board just on time. They played their last show on the 10th of December, in LA, but I don't know if they knew it was the last one at that moment or that was a decission they made later on, given the circumstances.

The Lomenzo thing does not look right, does it? I don't know whay he left on such a short notice, but maybe he had his reasons because the relationship with Zakk was not affected, aparently, for he not only played with P&G again when the band reunited for a one-off show which took place on the 31st of January, 1998, but he would also work with Zakk again, playing bass for Black Label Society. In fact, he was there the only time I got to see this band on stage, and he's currently in MEGADETH, with whom he had also worked in the past. Apart from what has been mentioned, his resume is huge. Concerning Tichy, he's still active as well and ha splayed with acts like Ozzy, WHITESNAKE and dozens more. His resume seems to be even longer than the bassist's.



Pride and glory, but very short-lived





After P&G's splitting up there's a whole new and unexpected scenario for Zakk Wylde. In 1995, Ozzy refuted his own rumours of retirement when he released OZZMOSIS, a weird album, to say the least (half paced songs abound, the production is really weird and I, for one, don't like the drums sound on it), which left me indifferent when it was released and has never won me ever since, but towards which, keeping in mind what the Madman has released during the current century, I show a certain degree of respect. Zakk took part on it (even with songwriting duties), despite being STEVE VAI the axeman who had been first chosen, and, as expected, he looks at his most comfortable when Ozzy allows him to make his guitar burn in songs like PERRY MASON, MY JEKYLL DOESN'T HIDE or THUNDER UNDERGROUND. Some others are kinda forgettable.



Guitar hero




However, he did not tour in support of that record. There were rumours of him having the chance to join GUNS & ROSES (?). of all bands (I don't know how close he was to join them but, apparently, he got to rehearse with them a few times), probably because of his friendship with SLASH. Maybe this friendship was already in order, but back in 1994 (June), London's Wembley Arena had hosted a show to commemorate the first hundred years of Gibson guitars (NIGHT OF 100 GUITARS), in which some artists (affiliated one way or another to the brand) gathered to play. Pride & Glory had been there (being Zakk a Gibson disciple until a few years ago), and so had Slash, who joined the power trio to cover VOODOO CHILD (SLIGHT RETURN), by Hendrix. Maybe that was where they first met, I don't know, but there was already a friendship going on back in 1995.

According to Ozzy, Zakk looked confused and not completely sure of his commitment to him, and that's why he got tired of waiting for him and eventually fired him, hiring the then unknown JOE HOLMES (who had been a guitar pupil himself of the unique Randy Rhoads, Ozzy's first guitarrist when he went solo). That was the only time, as far as I know, in which the relationship between Zakk and Ozzy soured a little bit, mostly on the singer's part, having not had a sincere answer by the guitarrist. This clip sheds some light on the affair.




Those first days with Ozzy




All of a sudden, Zakk had gone from being the splendid and young new axeman of someone like Ozzy, recording really succesful albums like No More Tears, touring the world and, to top it all off, having his own band signed by Geffen (let alone his hypothetical joining Guns & Roses, something that I would not have liked and, in my opinion, would have done him no good, but surely would have generated him lots of money) to being unemployed. All this in just seven years.

So, this is when Zakk, close to turning thirty, becomes a solo artist thanks to BOOK OF SHADOWS, a very special and unique album which perhaps only existed at first to terminate his deal with Geffen. No clue. But the thing is that this is music completely removed from the heavy metal boundaries, although you can also notice that the person behind it is someone devoted to said genre. I've read very often that this is an album on which P&G's softer moments take the spotlight and I agree, but not completely, because this might be a mainly acoustic album, but the southern atmosphere of the previous one is gone. Canadian artist NEIL YOUNG is usually mentioned when this record is talked about, so those familiar with him will know what this is all about. I label it as an acoustic record, mostly, with some piano, harmonica and so on, but also with some heavy metal guitar solos and heavy isolated parts which reveal who's responsible for it. It can somehow be linked to the more relaxed album which Zakk himself released in 2004 with Black Label Society, called HANGOVER MUSIC VOL. VI.



On top of the world




It was released in June, 1996, and, as I have said, was issued by Geffen. Siblings RON and HOWARD ALBERT produced it and was mixed by the very famous BOB CLEARMOUNTAIN, but I have no idea of neither where it was recorded, nor whose behind the atrocious front cover (with the album and the artist's names on it, over a weird black backdrop in whose centre there are two symmetrical faces, like children crying). Zakk plays almost everything and there's also JOE VITALE on drums and keyboards, and Lomenzo once again.

This is a very introspective and private album which goes from optimistic and likeable moments to songs where melancholy and even bleakness prevail.



Book Of Shadows






BETWEEN HEAVEN AND HELL might be proof of the merrier side of the album. It is one of its two singles as well. It has acoustic guitar, an harmonica riff might, accompanying drums and an electric guitar solo which gets more and more distorted as it develops. The lyrics could work as a metaphor for the confusing times Zakk himself was going through at the time, and I must admit I bought this record soon after it was released, while I was also struggling with my own situation, and it helped and kept me company, both music and lyrics-wise. This one hits home.

It's like singing a song that cannot be sung.



The imposing and gloomy SOLD MY SOUL is next, about someone who has sold their soul for love, and in which the strings arranged by MIKE LEWIS show up for the first time. Its structure is similar to that of the first song, but with those strings and a much darker atmosphere, until after two verses Zakk's heavy guitar (with some effects, same as his voice) rips big time and a wild guitar solo follows suit. Another similar solo works as finale for one of the most remarkable songs on the album.

Just sign right here, son. Everything will be alright.



Days of shadows




ROAD BACK HOME features organ and piano for the first time, supporting Zakk's woeful vocals during its melancholic beginning, but it all gets more optimistic and intense as guitar and drums join, and above all thanks to the powerful open chords during the refrain. Like Sold My Soul, it has a heavy guitar solo in the middle and a second one as farewell to the whole song. I think this is about a broken relationship and how the narrator is eager to retake it.

Trapped in the silence with my memories.



The emotional WAY BEYOND EMPTY was the album's second single and a videoclip was shot for the occasion. Beautiful acoustic tune (even the solo) with Zakk's voice standing out, hitting what I think are really high and, in principle, difficult notes. As fun fact, you can even notice some castanets here and there. The singer puts himself in different situations, and ask his partner what would happen in case he couldn't live up to her expectations in each and every one of them. If she would abandon him leaving him way beyond empty.

If I couldn't keep the smile forever on your face, would I still be around or would I be replaced?



THROWIN' IT ALL AWAY begins with the sounds of the wind blowing and a coming storm, and is a really sad tune dedicated to BLIND MELON's deceased singer, SHANNON HOON, Zakk's close friend, who had overdosed and died the previous year. Strings and piano show up again, but the best part is the metal counterpoint which the guitar solo adds to the song.

Well I can see you smile, can you see my tears?



Zakk




WHAT YOU'RE LOOKIN' FOR duly changes the bleak mood in which the album had fallen into, being a song very much in the vein of Between And Hell, with a wonderful and addictive refrain which is one of those very difficult not to sing along to when listened. No extra instruments this time, although there is the mandatory electric guitar solo and I love Zakk's screams at the end. His voice (an acquired taste, I guess) was still magnificent on this album, despite having lost the surprise factor. The lyrics are about an old friendship and the inner struggle of that old friend. Maybe this is something mental health-related.

When did life become a chore?



DEAD AS YESTERDAY is my least favourite song on the record, although I like it too, being a short and melancholic acoustic piece (with a more dramatic section in between) with some strings. Your average rainy day song with lack of affection as the main subject.

Ain't it funny, child, love sometimes leaves you as dead as yesterday.



Again brief, TOO NUMB TO CRY even happens to be the shortest song of them all, and perhaps the bleakest one. There is hardly some acoustic guitar strumming, and the facts that there are some strings, the song is a piano driven one, and the overall atmosphere, make it a good companion piece to the already mentioned Fadin' Away, from P&G's album. Short and intense (I could live without Zakk repeating the word why at the end, to be honest). Another mental issue? Suicide maybe? It might be.

If you could, you surely would wave yourself goodbye.



The amusing THE THINGS YOU DO follows the same route What You're Lookin' For did, but this time the outcome is not as good, having some hits, for sure, but also a few misses. The lyrics are cool, about a woman so evil that would make the devil start praying had he had to meet her face to face.

The Rolling Stones once sung a tune, singing words of sympathy, yet none were sung for you.



The album's biggest oddity is, strangely enough, a completely electric song like 1000000 MILES AWAY. This is one of my faves, although is far from being your average furious heavy metal song. I don't even know how I should define it, for its sound is quite weird, and Zakk seems to focus on showing part of his bag of tricks and effects. But still, is one of the songs I like the most, mostly due to an almost one minute long guitar solo which allows Zakk to simply slay his axe. This could be about loneliness or maybe some religious thing.

The times we had we thought would last forever but forever only lasts a little while.



The things I do




Closing number I THANK YOU CHILD also happens to be quite odd, because is mostly a lullaby dedicated to Zakk's daughter, played on acoustic and also with some strings and piano, but come the third minute and the guitarrist surprises the audience with some Panterarized heavy chords. This happens again at the end of the song. HAYLEY RAE WYLDE is Zakk's oldest child and was born in 1992, I think, and you can see her in a funny clip that was included as an extra on Black Label Society's DVD BOOZED, BROOZED & BROKEN BONED, from 2003, in which he is trying to sing this song (without laughing) together with a still very young Hayley.


It was you who made living all worth the while.





The album ends here but, as happened with Pride & Glory's, it was reissued in 1999 (by SPITFIRE), with another bonus disc with extra stuff, which in this case is comprised of only three songs, and not a very remarkable ones, or at least below the level showed on the rest of the songs.

The best one is EVIL WAYS, which had already been a B side on the Between Heaven And Hell single, and it has the same vibe of that song, music-wise, with some piano, although the lyrics remind me a little bit of those of an also similar tune, The Things You Do. The title leaves no room for doubt.

A smile comes upon your face as I break and cry.



THE COLOR GREEN is Book Of Shadows worst (or least good) song, turning out to be a tad boring. The only thing that keeps my attention is the song's main guitar line on acoustic and, if pushed, the verses themselves, for the bridge and the chorus are just filler stuff. Luckily enough is quite short, and it's about the power that money can exert over people.

Ain't it funny what the colour green make some people do?



Acoustic cowboy




Much better, although far from great, is PEDDLERS OF DEATH, a song which would become a very different one (barring the lyrics) that found its place on Sonic Brew, BLS's debut album. It deals with addictions and, when it comes to the music, is one of those songs which made some people link this album to ALICE IN CHAINS, and you can tell there are some similarities between this record and what that band did on its famous 1994 EP, JAR OF FLIES, with that gloom, the predominance of acosutic guitars intertwined with electric solos and even the usage of some strings.

Early wish, early grave, early ghost.



















During 1996 and 1997, Zakk kept a low profile (maybe he had no other option) and what he did was soldiering on, touring completely (if I'm not mistaken) on his own to defend Book Of Shadows. At those shows he played his solo stuff and some P&G tunes more suitable for an acoustic environment, together with the usual appearance of Ozzy's hit, MAMA, I'M COMING HOME, which can be found on No More Tears and whose authorship he shares with the Madman and Lemmy Kilmister. If I'm not mistaken, he took advantage of his acoustic guitar amplification and the pertinent pedals, to perform his electric guitar solos on the acoustic, just like that, and is very well known a bootleg album from that tour called ACOUSTIC COWBOY, which was recorded in Osaka on the 24th of January, 1997.




I'm coming home




Zakk recorded another album similar to Book Of Shadows, twenty years after it. Nothing wrong about it, but I think is a mistake to approach it as a second chapter and to call it like that, for the willpower and the motivation behind the first one belonged to that very moment in which it was created, and they can hardly be rekindled under different circumstances. I never really cared for that 2016 album, not being really sure of its worth, but I remember having listened to it a couple of times and concluding it wasn't as bad as expected, despite being inferior to its older brother. I insist, no problem with releasing another album like that (he had already done something of the sort with the already talked about semiacoustic BLS album from 2004), but it's a better idea to called it some other way. It's similar, music-wise, and the lyrics are very likely to go in a similar introspective direction, but it doesn't feel necessary as a second installment twenty years after. Although Zakk is the only person capable to answer that, obviously. I'll make sure I listen to it properly, just in case I'm missing something much better than expected and I'm being a complete blabbermouth here.



This is how good I am



Time to move on




There's not very much else to say. Book Of Shadows' market success was scarce and that led Zakk to create Black Label Society in 1998, releasing their first album in 1999. This band is still active and has released many studio albums and also a lot of live stuff ever since. He also came back to Ozzy in 2001 (although I think he had played some shows with him in between) for the DOWN TO EARTH album, combining both bands, even if his work with Ozzy has been sporadic during the current century. But their friendship hasn't, with Ozzy contributing to BLS's song STILLBORN (THE BLESSED HELLRIDE, 2003), and even being the godfather of Zakk's fourth child. According to what the guitarrist usually says, he'll always be there for Ozzy, and he's been one of the many musicians to play on PATIENT NUMBER 9, Ozzy's last studio album (2022).

On the other hand, Zakk had a serious health issue in 2009, due to a blood clot, but he got completely well and quit booze as a consecuence, something he was said to also be really good at. And apart from what's been said about Zakk Sabbath and some other assorted plans, he's also part (together with ANTHRAX's CHARLIE BENANTE) of the current and very much discussed Pantera line up, which tours the world playing the songs of the famed band from Texas (with PHIL ANSELMO as the sole member of the mythical outfit, given that bassist REX BROWN quit soon) to pay tribute to the DARRELL brothers and to the band's legacy.



The eighties




Wylde had always been a loyal soldier of the Gibson army, and more specifically of the Les Paul model (mainly), being legendary his famous design with concentric circles (bullseye) painted on most of his guitars, which inspired his own line of Gibson guitars. It's said that he wanted a design similar to the one that can be seen in ALFRED HITCHCOCK's VERTIGO, and he asked someone to paint his 1981 white custom Les Paul (The Grail, as he calls it, subject of one curious story from 2000 which ended happily and which can be read below) like that, but the guitar came back from the workshop with a different outcome which Zakk liked even better. But as of today (I did not know this), and since 2015, he's left Gibson, using almost exclusively stuff from his own brand, WYLDE AUDIO. I thought those new models (some of them not very beautiful) with the bullseye design he was using lately were also Gibson's. I was wrong.




Zakk at the turn of the century and today, give or take









See ya!








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