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Album Review
by SashaS
6-4-2005
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| Black Label Society: 'Mafia' is rockin'! |
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Black Label Society: 'Mafia'
(Artemis)
Black Label Society: on escalator of possibilities
Woke up this morn and the same old bullshit is everywhere: Gwen Stefani is the best dressed woman in the world [shouldn’t that be ‘Undressed in a kitschy way’?], BBC requests an interview with Bob Marley who died almost three decades ago, the screen legend Lauren Bacall bashes at the starlets of today [Jennifer Aniston's ambition killed her marriage to Brad Pitt] by accusing the lot of ‘miniscule talent’, Natasha Kaplinsky is feted as the male’s object of fictitious relationship and her engagement makes the main news [!?], the crappiest of progs such as ‘Desperate Housewives’ is the new favourite of sofa-lifers…
Dumb blondes? Brunettes ain’t much better in the cesspool of triviality… Stereophonics and Freeder are considered good bands? The age of mediocrity and frivolity… Heavy Metal hasn’t escaped it and Marilyn Manson, Mudvayne and Kiss [long before anybody else] have done well to turn it into a circus… Anti-feeling is replaced by satisfying the massive ‘taste’ and even the Godfather of HM has turned into the genre’s real-life Homer Simpson. Well, Ozzy Osbourne’s guitarist is not giving it up so easily to the overground demands for blandness…
Zakk Wylde-led Black Label Society’s album ‘Mafia’ is not strictly speaking underground but it has more dignity that a lot of their counterparts. What Black Label Society do is make crap-attitude-free music with a fount of ideas… BLS’ seven albums in eight years prove that Mr Wylde is a guitarist who knows his instrument and is not afraid to use it… innovatively. He does sterling job in the Ozzy’s band but, on the whole, this album surpasses a lot of the ‘Prince Of Darkness” solo discs.
His six-strings weave a magic around the rhythm and a vocal, curling, twisting, meandering but producing sounds that haven’t been heard since Jimmy Page’s heyday. Sure, Led Zeppelin are one of the named on the template of influences, alongside some heavier brigade such as Pantera but Alice In Chains as well. And yet, BLS is more in the Hard Rock tradition than regulation HM of today.
From a ‘TransAtlantic’ powerhouse that is ‘What’s In You’ or the epic bruiser that is ‘Suicide Messiah’ [a future single] or the air-guitar compelling dynamics of ‘Spread Your Wings’ to the tender/bluesy ‘In This River’ [vocal is deffo Bruce Springsteen-esque] and the concluding ‘Dirt On The Grave’, this is an album that is not bogged down in one [fast/head banging] gear but displays myriad different facets of the band’s capability. In that sense alone this band is on an escalator of possibilities!
‘Mafia’ - it should have been named ‘Magia’ methinks - is a great rock album in every respect with the guitarist being the true star.
8/10
Tour dates:
31 May - JB’s, Dudley
01 June - Garage, Glasgow
02 June - Rio, Bradford
03 June - Astoria, London
SashaS
6-4-2005
Black Label Society’s album ‘Mafia’ is released 04 April 2005 by Artemis/Rykodisc
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