Label: Epic Records
Release date: 9. 9. 2022
Production: Andrew Watt
Album length: 61.17 min
Genre: Heavy Metal
Rating: 8.5/10
Ozzy Osbourne is having a renaissance. We read about the famous musician’s ailments pretty much every day, which makes you wonder how the guy hasn’t kicked the bucket already, but the album “Patient Number 9” paints a completely opposite picture. On it, Ozzy sounds like he just swallowed a fistful of steroids and turned 20 again. After the excellent predecessor “Ordinary Man” (2020, RockLine review), the man, who announced publicly just three days after that album came out that he was already recording a new one, kept the creative momentum high and carried it over from “Ordinary Man” to “Patient Number 9”. Forget “Scream” (2010) and “Black Rain” (2007). “Patient Number 9” is at least as good as “Ordinary Man”, if not better. It channels the essence of “Down To Earth” (2001) really well and, yes, even “Ozzmosis” (1995).
With “Patient Number 9”, the man lives up to his calling as the ‘Prince of Darkness’. A little damaged, a little disturbed, let’s say mentally derailed. Given all that, he could hardly wait to hand the new album a title like this. The towering charisma of this (clownish) musician has always been astounding. Not just vocally, where Ozzy has no equal in the whole merry galaxy. Anyone who’s seen him live, whether solo or with Black Sabbath, knows he’s pretty much rooted to the spot on stage, yet he does most of the work with his eyes. All he has to do is bulge them wide and he hypnotizes the whole room in an instant. Sharon knew that very well. Ever since she went looking for him through the rooms of the Le Parc hotel in Los Angeles in mid-December 1978. She knew how to cash in on it in every way. Ozzy is an incredible marketing product. But above all that, the main thing is that the man is still making phenomenal new music.
In the studio he’s once again rounded up the best crew of studio collaborators (Andrew Watt, Robert Trujillo, Chad Smith), as well as special guests, among whom Duff McKagan, for instance, remains a regular, while the contributions of good old friends from Ozzy’s teenage years are an important departure from the predecessor. Those are Tony Iommi and Jeff Beck, plus Eric Clapton with his hypnotically recognizable bluesy softness in One Of Those Days (it’s steeped in Clapton’s ornaments and feels like the bluesiest thing on the album). Zakk Wylde is back on “Patient Number 9” too! Once again, Epic’s budget, tied to Ozzy, has shown off its lavish, inexhaustible source of funding. Alongside the hefty squad of guest musicians, Ozzy is once again joined on the new album by a whole battalion of violinists and cellists. The orchestral arrangements could easily have been ‘click-and-drag’ jobs. But not in Ozzy’s story. This blend of devilish guitar phrases and organic string arrangements is a trademark that puts Ozzy and his ‘hollow-abyssal’ voice on a throne all their own in the world of rock ‘n’ roll, or more precisely, world metal.
Ozzy once again hammered out the foundation of the arrangements and guitar phrases with producer and composer Andrew Watt, while the upgrade to this once again fully effective platform, the added value, comes from the special guests. Each with their own signature engraving, grip, touch, ‘gear’ that defines the character of their guitar exposé. Nostalgics will fall for the pairings of Ozzy with either Zakk Wylde or his Black Sabbath companion Tony Iommi right away. No Escape From Now is no Fairies Wear Boots, but you probably already know where the dog is buried, right? Iommi’s detonations (Iommi is credited as a co-writer on No Escape From Now), which we know very well and which are normally extremely dominant in the songs, this time get upstaged by the inventiveness of Chad Smith’s drum transitions, with which the Red Hot Chili Peppers drummer more than pleasingly loosens up the rocky immobility of Iommi’s riffing (another collaboration like this on the album, Degradation Rules, has a similar effect). Wylde and Iommi are quite close when it comes to phrasing this time (especially when it comes to the arrangement of Mr. Darkness). Let’s put it more precisely. Watt reads their minds brilliantly, since he’s the main creator of the phrasing across the whole new Ozzy album. In fact, he puts the phrases straight ‘into their mouths’. So everything on the new Ozzy album comes across as more compact in terms of ideas, vibe and sound than on the otherwise excellent “Ordinary Man”, which had bigger gaps in how the material was arranged. On the last three songs Watt finally steps into the spotlight on guitar too. He’s the album’s main riff-maker anyway, but all three tracks at the tail end are by no means studio ‘leftovers’ and don’t serve as bonus tracks. They work great. Those are the charging and hugely musical Dead And Gone, followed by the contrasting God Only Knows, the album’s only power ballad, which doesn’t leave the listener in the lurch in terms of songwriting either. The album doesn’t let up in the closing stretch at all, and Watt’s refined resourcefulness only confirms what a crucial studio pillar he is for the Prince of Darkness as a producer and arranger, even in the mature era of Ozzy’s career. Tacked on at the end (without any real need) is the one-minute joke Darkside Blues as the album’s outro, inspired by the legacy of Delta blues. Let’s call it Ozzy’s ‘Led Zeppelin album “I” moment’.
Pearl Jam guitarist Mike McCready brings his ‘goodies’, as do two gentlemen: ‘Slowhand’ Eric Clapton and another giant from the days of the white blues explosion, Jeff Beck. Then there’s Queens of the Stone Age boss Josh Homme, plus the late Foo Fighters drummer Taylor Hawkins and bassist Chris Chaney. The title track plays the role that the title track of No More Tears did. Gradual building up, a heap of atmospheric shifts, a chorus crescendo, and an outro guitar tornado courtesy of Mr. Beck. Immortal follows with a charging rhythm and a sharpened, bombastic riff (Mike McCready adds a solo on it), which could have been a great album opener. And it is one. On the vinyl format of the new album, Immortal and Patient Number 9 are swapped, and the album deliberately opens with Immortal on vinyl.
The general takeaway is that Ozzy doesn’t offer anything you haven’t already heard, but he approaches all the new material absolutely brilliantly. In the glow of a recipe he masters better than anyone and which is therefore his alone. In just the way a fan of his music (with the classic era leading the charge) could only wish for. For an artist who’ll soon be 74, that’s actually the most a musician can offer at this mature stage. The vocals on the new album still sound youthful. Like in 1970. As far as studio ‘fads’ go, the only thing Ozzy kept on the new album is Andrew Watt’s production maneuvers, otherwise “Patient Number 9” feels rather nostalgic. Even more so than its predecessor. It can take you straight back toward “Ozzmosis”.
Ozzy remains Ozzy. An icon. Never mind that in the latest chapters of his life he made a name for himself as a devotee and collector of finely mechanical screw placement, the high quality of this extremely polished and refined new album, his thirteenth studio record overall, is a true spring flight, far from the creative impotence of many of his generational peers, who are kept afloat only by ‘towing’ old glory. Ozzy could easily milk something like that himself. Luckily, he doesn’t. He’d rather reward us with the freshness of great new music. He remains fun, theatrical, colorful, ‘playfully off-kilter’, yet endlessly charismatic and radiant in every way. As if the career of one of the first icons of rock and metal had only just begun.
Author: Aleš Podbrežnik
Track list (CD format):
1. Patient Number 9 (feat. Jeff Beck)
2. Immortal (feat. Mike McCready)
3. Parasite (feat. Zakk Wylde)
4. No Escape From Now (feat. Tony Iommi)
5. One Of Those Days (feat. Eric Clapton)
6. A Thousand Shades (feat. Jeff Beck)
7. Mr. Darkness (feat. Zakk Wylde)
8. Nothing Feels Right (feat. Zakk Wylde)
9. Evil Shuffle (feat. Zakk Wylde)
10. Degradation Rules (feat. Tony Iommi)
11. Dead And Gone
12. God Only Knows (feat. Josh Homme)
13. Darkside Blues
Musicians:
Ozzy Osbourne – vocals, harmonica on tracks 10 and 13
Andrew Watt – guitar on tracks 1-3 and 5-13, bass on tracks 4, 6, 7, 9 and 12, keyboards on tracks 1, 5-7, 11 and 12, piano on tracks 3, 6 and 12, drums on tracks 11 and 12, backing vocals
Zakk Wylde – guitar on tracks 1-3, 6-9, 11 and 12, keyboards on tracks 1, 5, 7 and 9, organ on track 8
Jeff Beck – guitar on tracks 1 and 6
Tony Iommi – guitar on tracks 4 and 10
Mike McCready – guitar on track 2
Eric Clapton – guitar on track 5
Josh Homme – guitar on track 12
Robert Trujillo – bass on tracks 1, 3, 7, 9-12
Duff McKagan – bass on tracks 2 and 5
Chris Chaney – bass on track 8
Chad Smith – drums on tracks 1, 2, 4-6, 8-12, percussion on track 6
Taylor Hawkins – drums on tracks 3, 7 and 12, percussion on track 3
James Poyser – organ on track 5
David Campbell – string arrangements on tracks 6 and 11
Charlie Bisharat – violin on tracks 6 and 11
Roberto Cani – violin on track 6
Dario DeLeon – violin on track 6
Nina Evtuhov – violin on track 6
Songa Lee – violin on tracks 6 and 11
Natalie Leggett – violin on tracks 6 and 11
Philipp Levy – violin on track 6
Alyssa Park – violin on track 6
Michele Richards – violin on track 6
Neil Samples – violin on tracks 6 and 11
Jennifer Takamatsu – violin on track 6
Kerenza Peackock – violin on track 11
Sara Parkins – violin on track 11
Andrew Duckles – viola on tracks 6 and 11
Zachary Dellinger – viola on track 6
David Walther – viola on tracks 6 and 11
Jacob Braun – cello on tracks 6 and 11
Paula Hochhalter – cello on tracks 6 and 11
Ross Gasworth – cello on track 6
