Band:	Ozzy Osbourne
Album:	No More Tears
Style:	Heavy metal
Release date:	October 19, 1991
Guest review by:	Passenger

01. Mr. Tinkertrain
02. I Don't Want To Change The World
03. Mama, I'm Coming Home
04. Desire
05. No More Tears
06. S.I.N.
07. Hellraiser
08. Time After Time
09. Zombie Stomp
10. A.V.H.
11. Road To Nowhere
12. Don't Blame Me [2002 reissue bonus]
13. Party With The Animals [2002 reissue bonus]

Ozzy Osbourne has become the forefront figure of all things Metal to both the fans of the music and the average layman. Say what you want, but he has an aura that few musicians can only dream to achieve and nothing else has contributed to that as much as his revolutionary look at the potentialities of Rock, his musical genius in general. Here's a man who pioneered a genre along with his fellow band mates in the legendary Black Sabbath, a man who has held a successful solo career for over 20 years, a man who has always dared to be transgressive without caring about extrapolated opinions, which is the mark of a true artist.

1991 saw the release of one of his seminal works, "No More Tears", after Rhoads' death, after the drugs, after all the lawsuits that accused him of being perverse and inciting murder and suicide. It's a more relaxed album, which I suppose means it's a more accessible album, although I don't think it's fair to say it completely embodies the spirit of subsequent releases like "Ozzmosis" and "Down To Earth", it's somewhere in between. It's a loud album, but not one of his darkest, it's anthemic and slightly epic, it's basically a very mature album that can still please to the staunch supporters of "No Rest For The Wicked" while offering a more mainstream approach to songwriting.

While "Mr. Tinkertrain" may be far from being the best opening ever, it already gives a glimpse of the kind of memorable and simpler, more stripped down, more arena inclined style of "No More Tears", but it's with "I Don't Want To Change The World" that the album becomes captivating, an incredibly catchy track. Some criticized the growing number of ballads and declared it as a sign of the radio-friendly Ozzy that would appear in the future, but the fact is that songs like "Time After Time" or "Road To Nowhere" are really well written if you bother to leave your Metal standards aside for a bit.

This was very much a transition album for Ozzy Osbourne, and it's interesting because you can clearly understand he was challenging himself to do something different, to give his career a new burst, he was getting comfortable in a new skin. The line between inconsistency and eclecticism in thin, but in "No More Tears" Ozzy achieves a pleasant balance between what he had been and what he was going to become in the 90's that is unmatchable. Ultimately it's not very different from what other bands where trying to do at the same time, look no further than Black Sabbath's "Tyr", but with a twist, a sharper sound. Say what you want, but "No More Tears" stands the test of time.