With Black Label Society, guitarist and one-time Ozzy sideman Zakk Wylde found a lasting home for his ferocious metal picking. Formed in the late '90s, the outfit features a rotating lineup and Wylde taking on the bulk of the instruments. At its heart a Southern metal band, BLS melds the whiskey-soaked spirit of '70s rockers like Lynyrd Skynyrd with the unleashed chaos of '80s thrashers such as Slayer…
Zakk Wylde and the boys of the Black Label Society have gone back to basics, dug deep and delivered an album rooted in the golden age of classic metal, and full of soul and variety. As the name indicates, “Doom Crew” is a genuine love letter to the fans of BLS…
Doom Crew Inc. sees Zakk trading solos and twin-guitar parts with Dario Lorina, backed by the rumble of longtime bassist John “J.D.” DeServio and powerhouse drummer Jeff Fabb. Like every Black Label Society album since 2010, the band tracked Doom Crew Inc. at Zakk’s home studio, aka the Black Vatican. The beautiful simplicity of Black Label Society bangers owe everything to the lessons Wylde first heard on We Sold Our Soul for Rock N’ Roll. “Less is more with everything,” he says. “Except the guitar solos.”
Black Label Society announced their 11th studio album, Doom Crew Inc., out November 26. The 12-track album is both a tribute to the band’s “first to bleed, last to leave” road crew and a salute to the legion whose support, stretching back to 1998, rivals that of the KISS Army. The stomping, heavy, bluesy, recklessly unhinged hard-rock-metal quartet are part invading horde, and part traveling carnival – summoning caffeine-fuelled cacophony on records and the stage.
It’s been a while coming, but here we finally get Trikont’s third volume in their amazing Early Black Rock ‘N Roll series. As before, the intent is to present real American rock ‘n roll as it first emerged in the late 1940s-early 1950s, before the music’s black roots were de-emphasised and it was cleaned up for consumption by the middle class white America of Richie Cunningham, Ralph Malph and Potsie. These 26 knock-out tracks certainly deliver on this - or, in the words of Nik Cohn in the booklet’s notes, ‘compared to the sentimentalism of white music, (hearing the originals) was like a window being opened to let the stale air out’.