Ozzy Osbourne - Patient Number 9

Your Old Pal Mason (my favorite local radio personality) says Ozzy's latest album, Patient Number 9, is worth a listen or two, and your old pal Bottle will mainline anything through my ear holes, so why not? I don't wanna get all morbid and gloomy and stuff (because Ozzy Osbourne is nothing if not a ray of sunshine beaming down upon a field of frolicking kittens), but he will eventually die, and this could be his last album. Don't blame me, he's the one who brought it up, not wanting to die an ordinary man and all. 

Patient Number 9 is of course the sequel to the sequel of Patient Number 7, episode 5 of season 6 of Highlander: The Series, where Duncan MacLeod tells Kyra (who has amnesia) that they were warrior lovers 300 years ago. Or maybe it's a reference to Patient Seven, the 2016 movie about a psychiatrist who suspects all his patients' horror stories are connected to said 7. I like that, we'll go with it. 

I gotta be honest, i don't like the effects on solo Ozzy's vocals. Starting way back in the 80s Doubler, TrueVerb, H-Delay, and UltraPitch, a tin can as a pop filter, you name it, the end result sounds remarkably Vocorder to my ears. Setting that aside, Ozzy is perhaps best known for writing kickass songs about time-travel paradoxes, trains, and fictional TV defense attorneys. Imma be not happy if this doesn't deliver in the form of my neck hurting after all the banging it's preparing to do. Yeah, he does ballads sometimes, but they're usually at least appropriately gloomy enough to justify the thumb burns from your lighter. Anywho, album from a guy who doesn't want to live in the psych ward anymore, a-one, a-two, a-start barking at the moon already!

Yeah, that's a bangin' riff on the title track. I think everybody knows that ever since Randy Rhodes died, Ozzy frequently brings in most any famous guitarist who's not busy at the moment. Zakk Wylde is his go to guy, but we also get Jeff Beck, Mike McCready, Tony Iommi, and even Eric Clapton on this one. That's great, because sometimes i'm not convinced Zakk knows which song he's soloing over at any given moment. 

Immortal is track 2. My earlier Highlander reference isn't so silly after all, now is it? Damn Parasite is a jam and a half. The stylistic shift for the chorus caught me a little off guard at first, but it's growing on me the second time around, oh hey there's Zakk's unmistakeable Chef Boyardee impression. And he likes worms, apparently.

Track 4 cool down with that Planet Caravan-ish watery phaser effect, but some seriously growly riffage to follow. Good stuff. Way too stylistically spastic for radio single type stuff, but No Escape From Now is a very worth deep cut (except for that Jim Carrey "somebody stop me" line). 

Then the latest single. Look, every day is one of those days i don't believe in Jesus. I get the sentiment, it's just not personally meaningful for me. You're allowed to like it, i'm just a godless heathen. Definitely an interesting stretch for Clapton though, but there is the tiniest feeling like they're all trying to out Morello Tom's guest solo on that Pretty Reckless song from last year. 

You're not going to believe this, but A Thousand Shades is a total Beatles song, strings and all, it's crazy. Go listen to it and tell me it doesn't sound like John Lennon wrote it, i dare you. 

Dear Mr. Darkness, i wrote you this letter in the form of a totally lovely ballad-rocker. I only allowed Zakk to noodle vomit over 2 bars at a time. He wasn't thrilled, but it does sound more coherent that way. 

Ok, yeah, Ozzy honey, don't do the silly post-song voice tag line thing. It's not a thing you're good at and you sound exactly like Calvert DeForest (you don't even want to know how much tangential brain massaging and terrible google searches with only the word "ass" to go on it took before i finally remembered he had a cameo on Offspring's Ixnay on the Hombre and found his name that way). Maybe that's what Ozzy was going for, this is an album full of questionably tenuous allusions that are somehow completely apropos for this concept. Your milage may vary, but i feel like i've run a mental marathon and there's still 5 tracks to go. Nothing feels right is what i'm repeating ad nauseam. 

Hello, Harmonica. I'm not at all sure why you're here, but whatever. 

Now that we're getting some filler we can talk about Ozzy's ups and downs. Do you realize that his last big album was 2007's Black Rain? I don't remember 2010's Scream, do you? Again i'll be a little bit morbid, but 2020s Ordinary Man felt like Blackstar. Maybe that's not fair, and maybe that's just me, but releasing an album specifically because it could be your last is so overwhelmingly "Simpson's did it!" that i can't not point it out. 

Hello again, Harmonica. This time i guess we're doing a reverby washed out slide Blues epilogue, huh? I can't argue, it is a proper album closer, if only structurally speaking. 

Well look, Patient Number 9 is a helluva album. It's Ozzy, and he doesn't write bad songs. I lost the concept somewhere around track 5, but i guess that's totally fine because he's dying in an asylum, right? It works. Still, i can also hear how old-school Ozzy fans wouldn't necessarily be on board with this era of Ozzy, musically speaking. Whatever you want to call this Nu/Djent aware form of Pop Dance Metal is an acquired taste. Mama has bought a couple new cookbooks since you pay phoned her to tell her you're coming home, and Ozzy has never been shy about firmly planting his feet in whatever the rest of the radio sounds like at the moment. 60s Ozzy was Psychedelic, 80s Ozzy has a helluva lot of hairspray, 90s Ozzy was moderately irrelevant, and we just hibernate from 2007 to 2020. At least this album isn't bipolar, and i gotta say it is indeed pretty great. A part of me wants a big proper final Ozzy album, and a part of me says this isn't exactly it, but another part of me says "that'll do, War Pig, that'll do."

https://youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_kLT33gPmSvMfvI7rO6nTUdwPQ9qok1qLM