Album Review: Various Artists – Death Metal Tribute to OZZY
Reviewed by Dan Barnes
Has it really been a whole year since Ozzy left us? I guess if you’re reading this you’re one of the many, many people Ozzy’s music affected over the years, and have your own personal memories of the times when the world was getting off-kilter and only the Prince of Darkness could get you through.
This compilation collates twenty-six bands from the global underground who have gathered together to honour a fallen hero, and to give something back to the life and legacy of one of the genre’s most important figures.
Coming from all corners of the globe, from as far afield as Vietnam in the east, to the United States, each band brings an interpretation of their chosen song, spanning the entirety of his career from Paranoid to Black Rain.
The most direct cover comes from US band, World Eater, whose version of Shot in the Dark is as close to a note for note copy as you’ll find here. Bosnia and Herzegovina’s Hetrem stick quite faithfully to the musical style of Bark at the Moon but add a gruff vocal. Florida’s Withering Earth keep the prominent bass of No More Tears and filter the tune through their own melodic death metal aesthetic to a rather successful effect.
Being that Black Sabbath launched not just Heavy Metal, but wrote the book on how to Doom, it’s obvious that those with a more moribund outlook would contribute. Sweden’s Imperial Doom kick the whole album off with some Scandinavian sorrow on a mournful and gothic Mr Crowley, Poland’s Vephar tackle Snowblind, finding the melancholy and darkness in this destructive tale of drug addiction; even the seemingly upbeat riffs of Sabbath Bloody Sabbath get transformed into a slow and brooding stomp with some of the record’s most brutal vocals by Desekryptor.
Sabbath’s A National Acrobat is the only track here to get two covers: one from Orlando’s On Soulwings, which uses the band’s melodic nature and layers over an evil and sludgy vocal. The other version comes from Greece’s Flamecore, who go in a completely different direction with stomping percussion and screaming vocals. Both work perfectly well in presenting what one of Sabbath’s less visited classics means to different bands.
Grasping the baton and running with it are Mexico’s Becoming the Entity, whose version of Symptom of the Universe seems to take the listener on a cosmic voyage through the heavens. Snapping and snarling vocals cannot distract from this odyssey among the stars. Hallucinate from Germany make Changes a psychedelic, funk-bass driven, confessional; South Americans, Transmigrating Macabre take Electric Funeral, quickening the pace as they make the song’s warning of imminent nuclear annihilation even more of an alarming possibility. The only UK band on this record is Cornwall’s brutalists, Roast Dead, with their almost unrecognisable slamming version of Crazy Train, complete with genre-staple sample soundbites from the O-man himself. Loved this one!
Two of perhaps the more unusual songs to be covered on such a compilation are from album’s later in Ozzy’s career: Slaveson, from Austria, give us a version of Gets Me Through, the lead single from 2001’s Down to Earth record, interpreting it as a slow and deliberate stomper with edgy guitars and a demonic vocal. Vietnam’s Rêvasseur take I Don’t Wanna Stop, the first single from Black Rain, and give it a full-bloodied death metal makeover.
Of the other solo material covered here, Demon Alcohol, from 1988’s No Rest for the Wicked, is brutalised by German’s Reckless Manslaughter, Believer is twisted and tortured by Peruvians Icons of Blasphemy, screaming guitars abound; more classic old school death metal can be found in the
versions of I Don’t Know, from Portugal’s Tvmvlo, who borrow a little of Benediction’s style, and Vastness’ version of The Ultimate Sin, which leans into the band’s Polish roots.
Sabbath classics getting the death metal treatment come from across the continents, with the Americas being represented by Paraphilia’s guttural version of Cornucopia and Insineratehymn’s massively heavy scope on their interpretation of Into the Void. Further south Brazilians Podridão do sterling work on Under the Sun / Every Day Comes and Goes, while Pleasure of Mutilate from Ecuador give Paranoid a distorted riff and guttural vocals.
Pestifer from Portugal offer a very competent version of Killing Yourself to Live; Frenchmen, Misgivings use the big hook of Hole in the Sky and give it a gruff and growling vocal. Finally, we make a stop back in Poland for Bottlekopf’s driving Never Say Die and Clairvoyance’s Sweet Leaf which, although it starts with a cough, flies off at a breakneck pace.
I had a load of fun with this record, not just because it was packed with classic Ozzy material, but also because the contributors are not (yet) global names and it gives the opportunity to check out some smaller bands and see what they’re about. But, more than that, it shows the love and respect to Ozzy, for all he did to make our lives a little more bearable and to leave us with a body of work that is inspirational to people no matter where in the world they may be, and what their musical passion is.
Twenty-six bands paying their own tribute to the one and only Ozzy Osbourne.
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