The Softer Side of Black Label Society is Coming With An Acoustic EP

Black Label Society may have slowed down the pace of releasing albums every year because Zakk Wylde is not young anymore and prone to blood clots but they still try to provide music when they can. Next up on May 3rd from eOne Records is an acoustic EP entitled 'The Song Remains Not the Same'. No it's not a cover album of Led Zeppelin but instead acoustic redoes of songs from Order of the Black and some other tunes recorded during those sessions. This doesn't surprise me as Order of the black was overloaded with ballads so why not make some of the heavier tunes acoustic too? I'm probably going to pass on this but the hardcore BLS fans might be stoked. Track listing after the jump.

Black Label Society is Touring Again. Bypasses San Francisco.

It took me a bit of getting through this article on Blabbermouth to get who was sponsoring this tour. Apparently Black Label Society is going on tour with All That Remains and Hail the Villain. My confusion was just who the hell is Mistress Juliya. I'm guessing she's a host of a metal show on Fuse TV or something. I either never seem to catch these shows on that channel or we don't get it on cable anymore and I just don't have it.

Anyways I always find it odd when bands bypass San Francisco. Especially when it can't apparently be anything political. Looks like they're going through southern Cali and working their way east. I'd like to see BLS live one of these days but I haven't heard anything from the support bands. Also Rev Theory is replacing All That Remains for a few dates in June. After the jump is the tour dates.

Devil Music A-Z: Black Label Society

I've been familiar with Zakk Wylde's work for a long time. I remember when he replaced Jake E. Lee for Ozzy and thinking this guy is a Randy Rhoads fan since he uses a striped Les Paul. He was like a cross between Rhoads and Jake actually especially in the form of pinched harmonics at the end of each riff. I also remember him leaving the band to form Pride and Glory which was a southern rock band and a far cry from what he had been doing and then coming back to Ozzy to lay down the guitars for Ozzmosis.

The first time I heard of Black Label Society was probably in 2000 when Stronger then Death came out. A guy I was working with at the time was a big fan of it and introduced me. At the time metal was being dominated by the nu scene with Slipknot, Godsmack, and Staind ruling the airwaves. So I was blown away to hear Zakk's band add punishing riffs and throaty vocals over straight forward metal to the scene. It was pretty refreshing and I set out to listen to more. It took some listens to actually appreciate the albums in their entirety because as I said in the new Order of the Black review Zakk doesn't really know how to edit. There seemed to be quite a bit of filler in each album but it just took a few listens to appreciate.I also thought that there was too much filler because it seemed that BLS was releasing an album every year and a mad pace plus Zakk was spending time on Ozzy's albums and tours. Incredible amount of work and no time for quality control.

Now it's 2010 and the scene is dominated by alot of different flavors of "core" bands. It's still refreshing to hear straight forward southern metal in the midst of all this and personally Zakk's ride has been more fulfilling to me then when he was with Ozzy.

I now leave this article with some of my favorite tunes and videos by Black Label Society.



Probably my favorite ballad by BLS. Tribute to Dimebag.




Check out who is on bass


First single off the album Order of the Black.

Order of the Black vs. Scream. Who ya got?

Well, I had gotten halfway through both releases on this head to head and for some reason the draft did not save so I could continue with this today. That pretty much fucking sucks because I really don't feel like going back over this thing again. I even verified that the draft was being saved last night too. Oh well, I guess technical difficulties are bound to happen, I just wish it would have hit an article with less work put into it.

Let's just say the record was 5-2-1 in favor of Black Label Society by the time the post crashed. Here are my impressions of each album after the jump.

Order of the Black: It's a Black Label Society cd pure and simple. It's straight forward southern tinged metal and if you liked the previous albums you'll find good stuff on here. Otherwise if you're bored with BLS already this won't fix it. Zakk continues to put about 3 songs too many on his albums as they start sounding familiar. There are some good catchy punishing tunes with one treading on stoner metal territory. I think the sobriety shows though because his playing is cleaner across the board though I could have done without three of the five overly sappy ballads on here. The pinched harmonics are obviously back and in one track more then ever. I honestly think it's a habit he can't break. It's a good solid album with Zakk Wylde's stamp on it and I think he's doing fine without having to worry about Ozzy's camp as well.

Scream: With the exception of two tracks this album is boring. Ozzy is using vocoder effects too much and the messages in the songs are the same tired shit he does every time. We get it...mankind is violent and you're having epiphanies all the time. A couple of the songs were just embarassing in their lyrics like in the opening track "Let it die". Gus G. is a good technical player but there is no feeling. Some of the tracks you could tell it has Zakk's writing all over it because it was the same guitar tone. At this point I don't think it matters who is on guitar because Ozzy honestly should have stayed retired years ago. There is no creative juices anymore.This album is for diehards and fanboys only. Anybody new to Ozzy is not going to like this.

I'll listen to more of these albums and get a more complete idea of them later but at 15 and 13 tracks respectively and I got over halfway with these impressions, something tells me my opinions aren't going to change much. Zakk got the better end of this deal as far as artistic merits go. Again I apologize for not having this laid out the way I wanted to with a track by track breakdown like last time but it couldn't be helped. Next time I'll paste the text in wordpad instead of relying on blogger to save my work like it's supposed too.