Band:	Black Label Society
Album:	Mafia
Style:	Heavy metal
Release date:	March 09, 2005
Guest review by:	hottercraft

01. Fire It Up
02. What's In You
03. Suicide Messiah
04. Forever Down
05. In This River
06. You Must Be Blind
07. Death March
08. Dr. Octavia
09. Say What You Will
10. Too Tough To Die
11. Electric Hellfire
12. Spread Your Wings
13. Been A Long Time
14. Dirt On The Grave
15. I Never Dreamed [Lynyrd Skynyrd cover] [bonus]

I'm surprised, this is really furious!!! I haven't waited this long for a Zakk Wylde release; usually his music is more simple but here he plays his Les Paul in a special form, really powerful and devastating. I can say that, definitely, this is the most furious album of Black Label Society, and probably their most perfect release in all their active time. The mix of the instruments is incredible, the drums are excellent, too (not to mention the guitars that, obviously, are the best of this CD). You'll think this CD is very short, its length is 43 minutes, but that it isn't too short; it's so great that you'll think it's shorter than it's. Along this CD, there are really good Zakk Wylde vocals, and of course there are also ballads, Zakk Wylde can't help doing ballads. In his ballads we can hear his most perfect and clean vocals.

There are only two ''long'' songs in this CD, but there are 14 songs. This release is catchy from the beginning to the end. The opener "Fire it Up" is one of the most perfect openers I've heard, the guitars are really excellent here and it's a very powerful song. The most perfect song in this CD is, in my opinion, "Suicide Messiah" (it's also the longest song of this CD). It isn't so furious as the first two songs, but is more catchy, and all the instruments do very successful work, this is a masterpiece (Oh Yeeaaaaaaah!!!). Of course I will mention the fourth song, "Forever Dawn." This speed is not human, really quickly. Of course there are ballads in this CD. We can find one in "In this River." Here we can hear the cleanest Zakk vocals, and this ballad is very similar to the ballads included in their previous CD "Hangover Music Vol. VI"... but it's, however, excellent. I've never heard an interlude like "Dr. Octavia," it's an amazing guitar solo, without drums or another instrument, really interesting. We can find a really catchy song in "Electric Hellfire," it's a masterpiece and the guitars are excellent. Great changes of intensity in "Been a Long Time," when they're relaxed, suddenly, they turn their music into a mix of powerful and fast instruments. To finish this CD there is, of course, an amazing ballad. "Dirt on the Grave" is an amazing but strange ballad, you'll think that, suddenly, they will start to play their instruments powerfully, because the intensity of this ballad is very high, but, in my opinion, Zakk Wylde will never destroy one of his ballads, he likes to make ballads a lot.

This is a masterpiece, this isn't long at all. With this CD, we can see that the Heavy Metal is still living among us, and there are great current Heavy Metal. Zakk Wylde is a Heavy Metal master, he knows how to enjoy the people, because he's a very expert man. If he releases another CD similar to this, I will give it my 100%, Zakk is... a monster!!!