So today a review of one of my favorite guitarists group. The rock and roll viking himself. Zakk Wylde with his Black Label Society debut album “Sonic Brew”. Right off it explodes with Bored to Tears and shows true heavy metal potential. This album is fantastic with huge power chords and loud awesome solos. There are huge guitar and bass parts, its just spectacular, as I right this my body is shaking with the power of the music. It is truly beautiful and truly pure heavy metal. Zakk Wylde has a great voice that is some 2 octaves lower than everybody else and everything here is explosive and amazing heavy metal at it's finest. I hope my earphones don't blow out on this album, that would really suck.
While the music is guitar dominated it is definitely not the only aspect. Bass has a chance to shine as seen in the intro of the second track. The drums definitely give a certain drive to the music. Wylde has always claimed that his biggest influences are Zeppelin and Sabbath (same for me) but this is like really hard Sabbath with a really deep voiced vocalist. The guitar roars over everything, sometimes it is quieter but it is always read to explode into a cacophony of power full chords that make the album awesome. The distortion is almost always on and the musical quality never goes down with an amazing mix of tapping and regular soloing. These factors make sure that the album rocks for its whole duration.
The lyrics are aggressive at times and doom laden at others. Overall it is typically pretty much angry heavy metal. It lashes out at others who have lied or been against the singer. I am impressed at Wylde's ability so sing so well and play such great music at the same time. The solos are also a cut above average, I understand why Ozzy like him so much when they were together. They definitely rocked then and Wylde rocks in this band. The music is spectacularly loud and aggressive and just makes you want to move. Or in my case reall ticked off that I bust a string earlier today and need to go buy a replacement.
Overall a really good really loud album that features some really amazing tracks. While the compositions are not as good as that of the Smashing Pumpkins they are still pretty amazing and strong. Everything is well played and the solos are great. Wylde is one of my favorite guitarists and if you listen to this album you will hear why. While not like the Zeppelin and Sabbath he loves so much it is still really good and loud. If you had a bad day this is one of the things you listen to at full blast to feel better. This is a fantastic album.
OVERALL 9.5/10
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