Album Review: Order of the Black by Black Label Society

Album number eight and BLS show no signs of slowing down There appears to be no stopping the blues-swilling behemoth that is BLS, and with a rare permanence Mr Wielandt and his cohorts return for studio album number eight. As soon as the sleazy, slinky riffs of opener ‘Crazy Horse’ stagger in you can only sit back and admire the band’s consistence. This 13-tracker is littered with dirty, groovy little gems, the picks being ‘Parade Of The Dead’, ‘Black Sunday’ and ‘Godspeed Hell Bound’ (featuring some exemplary guitar work that we’ve all come to expect from Zakk), and numerous, joyous, neck-jarring riffs.

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Black Label Society have a new drummer for 2010’s Order of the Black, but the overall big picture hasn’t changed much for Zakk Wylde’s Southern-fried metalheads: they’re still an unholy cocktail of Skynyrd, Sabbath, and Metallica, all the sounds that fuel a white trash night out. Wylde does have a tendency to growl like Axl Rose when he slows thing down for a piano ballad, but that downshift doesn’t happen that often: Black Label Society are as close as you can get to unapologetic heavy guitar rock in the 21st century, holding true to the power of two guitars, bass, drums, and overwhelming amplification. Songs don’t necessarily stick but riffs do, as do Wylde’s dexterous solos, which pull off a tricky thing -- they’re breakneck but have a bluesy, almost soulful, undertow.

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