Album review: Ozzy Osbourne, Bark at the Moon (1983)

ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED ON DEC. 16, 1983

By Steve Newton

It looks like Ozzy’ll be laughing all the way to the bank when the royalty cheques for his new album Bark at the Moon come rolling in.

The raunched-out guitars, pounding drums, and madman vocals that made his first two albums, Blizzard of Oz and Diary of a Madman, million-sellers come through heavily on the latest.

Osbourne has always relied on flashy, talented guitarists (Tony Iommi, Randy Rhoads, Brad Gillis) and powerful rhythm sections to help him sell records, and the work of recently enlisted axeman Jake E. Lee and steadfast skin-banger Tommy Aldridge (Black Oak Arkansas, Pat Travers) is enough to do the trick on Bark at the Moon.

This is not to say that the frightening speed and unique phrasing of the player on his first two albums, Randy Rhoads, isn’t sorely missed. But Lee does a decent job on Bark at the Moon‘s best songs, “Rock and Roll Rebel” and “Waiting for Darkness”.

Ozzy is credited as writing all the songs himself on the new LP, and perhaps that has something to do with the weaknesses in a few. On his previous solo outings Osbourne allowed the other members of the band to put their two bits in as songwriters, and the result was more full-bodied compositions.

And even though the combination of strings and Ozzy’s vocals gets close to nauseating on the album’s worst track, “So Tired”, there are enough spiraling rock licks on Bark at the Moon to at least semi-satisfy the headbanger on your Christmas list.

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