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
3.5/5 ·
UMUR
"Bark at the Moon" is the 3rd full-length studio album by UK heavy metal artist Ozzy Osbourne. The album was released in May 1983 by Epic/ CBS. The album exists in several versions with different tracklists. My version is the UK version with the Ozzy Osbourne logo on the front cover in blue & yellow. This version includes the track "Spiders" but excludes the track "Slow Down", which is a track that is included on the US and the Japanese version of the original album.

Since the release of "Diary of a Madman (1981)" there have been a couple of significant lineup changes. Drummer Lee Kerslake has been replaced by Tommy Aldridge and the tragic death of guitarist Randy Rhoads in March 1982 meant that Ozzy had to bring in a new guitarist to fill out his shoes. Ozzy brought in Jake "E" Lee as the replacement for Randy Rhoads. Allthough all songwriting on the album is credited to Ozzy, it´s believed that both bassist Bob Daisley and Jake "E" Lee contributed to the songwriting.

The music on the album continues the heavy metal style of the two previous albums. The songs are pretty much vers/ chorus based and a bit more formulaic than the slightly more adventurous "Diary of a Madman". As on the preceeding albums there are both hard rocking heavy metal tracks and power ballads on the album. The latter style is represented by the tracks "You're No Different" and "So Tired". The former is allright but the latter is rather bland. I really don´t like that song. The use of strings is not very tasteful and doesn´t exactly make things better. Thankfully some of the harder rocking tracks like "Bark at the Moon", "Now You See It, Now You Don't" and especially the heavy metal anthem "Rock & Roll Rebel" really work well. I also quite the enjoy "Waiting For Darkness".

While the synths aren´t dominant all the time "Bark at the Moon" has a distinctly more synth laden sound than the two predecessors and the use of the synth is generally not as tasteful as it was on the predecessors either. it´s of course an aquired taste, but personally I´m not too fond of the AOR elements that have begun to sneak into Ozzy´s sound on this album.

The production is also weaker than the production on especially "Diary of a Madman" and that´s a bit of a disappointment too, as I´m sure Ozzy had both more time and more money behind him when he recorded "Bark at the Moon".

So at the end of the day I´m a bit biased about "Bark at the Moon". There are some really great material here but there are also some tracks that I don´t appreciate much. But hell! It´s hard to argue with 3 million copies sold in the US alone now isn´t it? There are obviously a lot of people who enjoy this album more than I do. A 3.5 star rating is deserved despite some of the flaws mentioned above.
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