Band:	Ozzy Osbourne
Album:	Scream
Style:	Heavy metal
Release date:	June 22, 2010
A review by:	Daniell

Disc I
01. Let It Die
02. Let Me Hear You Scream
03. Soul Sucker
04. Life Won't Wait
05. Diggin' Me Down
06. Crucify
07. Fearless
08. Time
09. I Want It More
10. Latimer's Mercy
11. I Love You All
12. Jump The Moon [Japanese bonus]
13. One More Time [iTunes pre-order bonus]

Disc II [tour edition bonus]
01. Hand Of The Enemy
02. One More Time
03. Jump The Moon
04. Bark At The Moon [live]
05. Let Me Hear You Scream [live]
06. No More Tears [live]
07. Fairies Wear Boots [live]
+ Let My Hear You Scream [video]
+ Making Of The "Let My Hear You Scream"
+ Making Of The "Scream"

Zakk Wylde never disappoints. Riffs heavy as lead, intricate, inventive solos, incredibly heavy sound of his guitar. The latest Ozzy Osbourne album is full of Zakk. What would it sound like if he didn't play on it? Wait. Zakk isn't here! Or, he is, he just changed his name to Gus G. I hear no difference. Either Gus G. is the best Zakk Wylde impersonator in the world, or he was too scared to show his own style while recording with the Prince of Darkness for the first time. Anyway, I trust that Ozzy knew what he was doing when he chose Gus to be his axeman. After all, he always hits the jackpot when it comes to guitarists: Randy Rhoads, Jake E. Lee, and the aforementioned Zakk Wylde - they were all brilliant.

If I were to review only guitars on Scream, I'd give this album 10 out of 10. "Let It Die", "Soul Sucker", "I Want More", "Latimer's Mercy" - all these songs are full of deliciously slow, mercilessly heavy and infectiously catchy riffs that caress my speakers and make the walls and ceiling in my apartment shed plaster on my head. Especially "Soul Sucker" is there to remind me, and everyone who is even mildly interested in metal, that Ozzy was a member of the band that invented heaviness and doom metal. Something tells me that my neighbours from downstairs are filing a complaint...

The overall idea behind Scream seems to be quite simple. A song that will become the first single ("Let Me Hear You Scream"), several ballads ("Life Won't Wait", "Time", "I Love You All"). These are mandatory elements to ensure sales and cash flow. The rest is what Ozzy Osbourne is really good at: slow songs with very heavy riffs, accentuated by very catchy choruses and melodic solos. Needless to say, I value the latter much more. I just wish that Ozzy would forget about fucking money for once and record an album as good as Diary of A Madman. It'll never happen, but one can hope.

So the commercial reality is that a large chunk of the album will make a metal fan cringe, whine and wail out of disgust, because Ozzy's 100th ballad is as cheesy and bad as his 1st. As much as I love the old man, I can't understand how he can remain blind to the blatant fact that ballads are not his thing. I suppose that the success of "Mama I'm Coming Home" and "I Don't Want to Change the World" several years ago convinced him that he needs to commit at least one murder, err, pardon me, ballad on every album. And if only he limited himself to one...

But hey, I'm being unfair here. Out of 11 songs, only 3 are puke inducing ballads, one is a non-Ozzy attempt at a song for charts ("Let Me Hear You Scream"), and the remaining 7 range from quite decent ("Crucify", "Fearless") to brilliant ("Soul Sucker", "I Want More"), so the overall impression should be very good, granting the rating of at least 8,5. Sure, but how would you feel if the girl you fancied from the pics she sent you, turned out to have an arse the size of Pentagon?