Older fans of Ozzy Osbourne won't be too surprised by the decidedly heavy tone of Ozzy's latest project, "Black Rain." Those folks who only know the domesticated Ozzy from his MTV show will most likely view this album as a wake-up call. The loud reassurance of tunes like "Not Going Away" and "I Don't Wanna Stop" comes as a boot to the collective bottoms of younger rock bands that currently rule the airwaves. It reminds them that although he's getting a bit long in the tooth, Ozzy can still rock and probably will until the day he dies. The aforementioned tracks as well as "11 Silver" "Countdown's Begun" and "Trap Door," are all excellent rockers. "Civilize The Universe," "The Almighty Dollar" and "Black Rain" are nice mid-tempo rockers that hint at Ozzy's sound in the late 80's/early 90's. Two solid ballads are also included, the better of the two being "Lay Your World On Me."

Overall, Ozzy, Zakk Wylde, Mike Bordin and Blasko have put together an excellent set of tracks for "Black Rain." There's no stopping the Ozzman any time soon as far as this album is concerned. I recommend it to anyone who enjoys Ozzy's older work as well as fans of Black Label Society, hard rock of the 80's/90's and the kiddos who think Ozzy is nothing more than a burned-out rocker. Hide the Nickelback albums, boys, the prince has returned!

What can I say... This is the Best Music I own. Ozzy Rocks!

I spent a LOT on this special edition of the CD to get 2 extra songs. Little did I know a newer version would come out with 4 extra songs. I feel duped! Please buy the version with more songs for less.

This is not one of those Ozzy albums which will amaze the listener, but it does provide more than a little evidence that Ozzy can still rock. Ozzy also shows that he isn't afraid to update his sound a bit, as there is some experimentation here with industrial metal, though for my tastes I would have preferred that he did more of that instead of falling back to his older sound on some of the pieces.

The opening piece is "Not Going Away" which appears to be a biographical
statement about Ozzy not retiring. It is a solid piece and is one of the pieces on which he experiments with his sound, but ultimately it fails to grab the listener, and it did not grow on me with repeated listenings. Next up is "I Don't Wanna Stop", which is a similar lyrical message, but a stronger piece, with some great instrumentation. However, when one compares this to some of Ozzy's greatest pieces it just doesn't match up. Next up is the title track, "Black Rain", a piece which Ozzy questions the purpose of the war. For me this is the strongest of the tracks, though it too would not be considered in the top tier of all Ozzy's songs.

The ballads are the weakness of this album, as unfortunately it has been a long time since Ozzy has done any ballad which didn't sound like one he has done before. The first one is "Lay Your World On Me". It sounds like any number of previous efforts, and lyrically is probably weaker than most. Up next is "The Almighty Dollar", once again a slightly different sound, but this one just doesn't work for me. It isn't bad, and it does have some interesting sections, but it just doesn't hold up as a complete piece. "11 Silver" is a high energy effort, but as with its predecessor it ends up around an average piece because it doesn't all fit together, though there is a furious guitar solo which perhaps moves it slightly above average. "Civilize The Universe" is a bit better to my ears, and it is one of the highlights of the album.

"Here for You" is the second ballad, and as with the first one, it is one of the weaker tracks. Ozzy should consider doing an album or two without ballads, unless he can really come up with something different. "Countdown's Begun" is a more traditional sounding heavier Ozzy song, though it seems to signal that the inventiveness of the sound on the earlier tracks as run out. As an Ozzy piece, I found it rather unexceptional, though preferable to the ballads. The last piece on the regular CD is "Trap Door", which is another of the better pieces on the album, though the lyrics are too repetitive for me, it at least offers a pretty good jam.

The Japanese release contains two bonus tracks, the first of which is "I Can't Save You" This sounds more like an older Ozzy piece, but it has a decent sound so of the more traditional Ozzy sounding pieces on this album, it would have been my favorite, were it not for the second bonus track "Nightmare", which once again doesn't fit as much with the industrial metal sound of a lot of this album, but is the best of the traditional Ozzy pieces included.

In terms of composition, this album is essentially a three person effort. Ozzy, Zakk Wylde, and Kevin Churko composed all the pieces, with the exception of "The Almighty Dollar" and "Trap Door" for which Zakk is not credited as composer. The musicians are Ozzy Osbourne (vocals), Zakk Wylde (guitars and keyboards), Mike Bordin (drums and percussion), and Blasko (bass). Though it is a bit inconsistent, I am rounding this one up to four stars.

I thoroughly enjoy listening to Black Rain it is one of my Favorite Ozzy Osbourne Albums. For a guy who is that old and has been rocking as long as I can remember it is astonishing that he can still get on stage and rock crowds upon crowds of people out. Show me someone who is 60 who can rock like that! A lot of young talent has came from Ozzfest which of course he founded to give not so named bands a well known name. And Ozzy always leaves a mark in the heavy metal rock world. So I rate all of Ozzy Osbourne's albums number 1 for the times they come out. Does anyone remember the music scene before Down to Earth? Spice Girls, Insync, Hanson, I mean come on, yuck!! I am afraid of what will happen when Ozzy is out of the music scene and I am sure I can count on Zakk Wylde to keep it from falling completely apart. Love for Ozzy and Zakk!!!!Evil Dave