OZZY OSBOURNE — Bark At The Moon (review)

OZZY OSBOURNE — Bark At The Moon album cover Album · 1983 · Heavy Metal Buy this album from MMA partners
4.5/5 ·
SouthSideoftheSky
“There’s no present, there’s no future, I don’t even know about the past. It’s all timeless and never ending, to take it in it’s all too vast”

After the tragic death of guitarist extraordinaire Randy Rhoads, Ozzy brought in Jake E. Lee as his replacement and produced his best and most consistent album. The rest of the band consists again of Bob Daisley on bass, Don Airey on keyboards and Tommy Aldridge on drums. This line-up of the band proves once again that Ozzy was either extremely lucky or had a very good judgement or both. While the first two albums were both great, they were also slightly uneven. Bark At The Moon, on the other hand, is consistently great and it flows very well from beginning till end. This album feels like a unified whole where the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.

The title track is an instant classic and one of Ozzy’s most famous songs. This song even became a hit single in the UK. The guitar solos on this song (as on the whole album) are amazing! Several tracks takes on a slight progressive edge and keyboards are omnipresent. The album alternates between slower and faster tempos and between different moods, but mostly a rather dark mood like of the Diary Of A Madman album. So Tired is a symphonic ballad with strings and piano in the style of Goodbye To Romance from the debut, only better. This too became a successful single and music videos were made for both this song and the title track.

There are several different versions of this album but make sure you get the 1995 CD re-master. Avoid the 2002 re-mixed versions! You really don’t need the bonus track One Up The B-Side that is only featured on the latter CD version. On the original UK vinyl the track Slow Down was replaced with Spiders In The Night which is featured as a bonus track on both CD versions. On some versions the track Centre Of Eternity is called Forever. Confusing, isn’t it? It is hard to pick out favourites from such a strong album, but my favourite track is probably the dark closer Waiting For Darkness.

Also, while the production on particularly Diary Of A Madman was not perfect, Bark At The Moon is excellently produced. The cover art is great too with Ozzy dressed as a werewolf.

As you may have noticed, I have a very soft spot for this album; my favourite Ozzy Osbourne solo album!
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