Review Summary: An unadventurous, unspectacular, but nonetheless dignified addition to a veteran artist's modern body of work.
Although immortality, as a concept, is still limited to the realm of fantasy, certain public figures across the ages have made a point of trying to prove otherwise, consistently overcoming whatever roadblocks life put in their way and surviving to tell the tale; for some reason, this phenomenon seems to be particularly prevalent in the realm of music, the historically disreputable nature of which naturally lends itself to any number of 'deal with the devil' japes. Even still, every now and again, life does manage to catch up to these seeming immortals, plucking another one from the human realm to remind everyone of their ultimate mortality; and while these are usually self-contained occurrences, every now and then, these evergreens' paths do intertwine, sometimes in eerily coincidental ways. Case in point: the fact that, a mere day after one of the main figureheads of this group lost her long-standing battle against fate, her fellow countryman – a man whose lifestyle and excesses should have caught up to him a long time ago, but who has somehow endured through unthinkable odds – puts out new music, as if to give the Grim Reaper a defiant middle finger and state that, while
'people will come and go', he will
'never die', because he is, indeed,
Immortal.
The man in question is, of course, Ozzy Osbourne, Keith Richards' main contender in the immortality stakes after the demise of both Lemmy Kilmister and Elizabeth II of England, who – two years after his return from the grave with
Ordinary Man – once again emerges from his cryo-chamber and into the public eye, to add another chapter to a musical saga which now stretches back over five decades (!): and while the deceptively titled new opus (this is not the Madman's ninth album, but his thirteenth) is unlikely to set the classic-rock world on fire, let alone stand up to the Prince of Darkness' stellar early output, it does make for a worthy addition to Osbourne's modern canon, positioning the former Black Sabbath singer in the same grizzled, yet dignified veteran space as fellow evergreen Alice Cooper.
Indeed, like Cooper (and other veteran acts, such as Accept or Iron Maiden), Osbourne has, over the past two decades or so, managed to slip gracefully into his musical comfort zone, without ever letting the quality dip too far below the acceptable;
Patient Number 9 is certainly no exception to this rule, lining up nicely with the rest of the Madman's modern output, without ever so much as attempting to go beyond it. Rather, fans of Osbourne's work since the turn of the millennium will know exactly what to expect from unlucky number thirteen, which does indeed deliver the usual mix of riff-driven stompers, moody mid-tempos, melancholy ballads and the occasional, more upbeat number, with varying degrees of efficacy. Additionally, as had previously happened on comeback outing
Ordinary Man, Osbourne forgoes his usual practice of working with a tight-knit group of musicians in favour of experimenting with a series of collaborations, ranging from fellow retirement-home boomer-rock icons Jeff Beck and Eric Clapton (two musicians even
older than him!) to frequent collaborators like long-standing partner in crime Tony Iommi and inevitable prodigal son Zakk Wylde (a name who seems increasingly indissociable from the Madman's, even when he is not a formal sideman) to somewhat unlikely new-generation allies Josh Homme (nominally Osbourne's current 'fixed' guitarist), Dave Navarro, Mike McCready, Chad Smith and late Foo Fighters stick-man Taylor Hawkins.
While such a wide and mixed range of styles and influences could have easily resulted in a musical hodge-podge, however, the exact opposite happens, with
Patient Number 9 making for a surprisingly cohesive (if somewhat uneven) set of songs. Perhaps this is down to the fact that Osbourne is credited as having written the majority of the material himself (allowing for collaborations on only two of the album's thirteen tracks), presumably in order to ensure that the plethora of guests did not end up derailing or otherwise interfering with his now-trademark sonic style – an objective which even a cursory listen to the album will show to have been fully accomplished. Indeed, while the guests do leave their imprint on the tracks they feature in (Beck expectably adds noodly, offbeat guitar work to his songs, Wylde predictably roars and squeals all over his, and Clapton naturally has an otherwise extraneous acoustic showcase at the start of the one number he features in) no cut on this album is ever anything less than an Ozzy Osbourne song through and through, as if to remind his collaborators that, regardless of their own legacy and industry cred, this is an Ozzy album with guest features, and not the other way around.
This is not the only stance taken by the former Sabbath frontman on this thirteenth opus, either; it is only the bravest of musicians not associated with the prog genre who would dare place a seven-minute mid-tempo stomper as the opener for an album, and yet, that is exactly what Osbourne does on
Patient Number 9 – and to fantastic effect, too. Once the slight conigtive dissonance caused by the guitar's relative lack of bite has worn off, this quasi-epic tale of mental patients in an institution (carefully crafted with not only Osbourne's sidemen, but producer Andrew Watt and outside hitmaker Ali Tamposi, in one of the sole exceptions to the aforementioned songwriting pattern) quickly asserts itself as the album's first stand-out, with its atmospherically crushing instrumental perfectly servicing the first of several attractive choruses on the album. Unfortunately, this effect is rapidly dampened by the two succeeding tracks, both of which are the usual not-quite-accomplished attempt at writing a faster-paced song which seem to feature in every Ozzy Osbourne album; even still,
Immortal's chorus does provide a pleasant link to the Madman's early career, helping the song edge its immediate successor as the stronger of these two cuts.
From there, and for the ensuing forty-five or so minutes, the album becomes something of a rollercoaster ride through better-than-they-needed-to-be highs and eminently forgettable lows, as competently pleasing ballads
No Escape From Now, A Thousand Shades and especially
Nothing Feels Right (which appropriates a
Revolver-era Beatles chorus to bolster perhaps the second strongest all-around cut on the album, after the title track) and crushing Sabbath throwback
Degradation Rules (with its crushing-riff-and-harmonica combo harking back over fifty years to Sabbath's first release standout track
The Wizard) are forced to co-exist side by side with such obvious album filler as
Mr. Darkness or
Evil Shuffle – two songs which, unlike what the borderline self-aware titles might lead to believe, both take themselves extremely seriously, with the former being, of all things, a lovelorn ballad. In fact, the first three-quarters of the album feature an almost exactly alternating decent-poor pattern, with only the stretch after
Degradation breaking this mold to present four good-to-great songs in a row – including the very eighties
Dead and Gone, with a bass-drums-and-keyboard intro straight out of the Madman's
Ultimate Sin era, and final standout
God Only Knows, yet another grand ballad in an album unusually filled with them, but none the worse for it.
Even despite these inconsistencies, however, by the time sub-two-minute oddity
Darkside Blues (precisely the slab of old-timey, plaintive vocals-and-harmonica American Delta musicianship the title hints at) brings hostilities to a close, the overall impression of Ozzy Osbourne's new album is along the lines of those caused by most new music released by veteran acts in the past two years – that is to say, far from their heyday best, but in no way shameful or offensive to the legacy created therein. At seventy-three years of age, and having dedicated over two-thirds of his lifetime to making and releasing music (not to mention survived a litany of excesses which would have brought the average human to their knees) Osbourne knows he has absolutely nothing left to prove to anyone, and can settle for doing precisely what he wants, how he wants, so it is nothing short of flattering (to him as well as to his listeners) that he is still putting this degree of effort into new material. In fact, while
Patient Number 9 may be nothing more or less than a re-tread of a provenly successful, twenty-year-old formula, even its more mundane, average moments fall well short of being considered poor (with only
Evil Shuffle potentially dipping below the threshold), and the overall product should likely prove more than satisfactory to the converted-faithful demographic it openly targets, not to mention give Osbourne a leg up in the ongoing Showcase of the Immortals - and with the Rolling Stones seemingly more interested in touring than releasing new material, the Madman may well have just staked his claim for the throne in that regard...
Recommended Tracks
Patient Number 9
Nothing Feels Right
Degradation Rules
God Only Knows
