In A Mellow Mood... With Zakk Wylde?!?
Monday, April 11, 2016 at 12:01AM
Things at BBG! have been fairly GnR recently. How is Adler’s back? Does Stradlin’s man cave have surround sound? Who is sexier: Slash or Phil Collen? Is “Pretty Tied Up” actually a post-feminist love song? So I wanted to dim the lights and just sit back and listen to the soothing Southern sounds of Zakk Wylde.
Wait? What? Wylde just released Book of Shadows II, a follow-up to the 1996 solo album of the same name, minus the digits. The first single, “Sleeping Dogs” (I’d listen to this with the video off!), gives you a sense of the headspace this project operates in:
Think shameless and unabashed retro music that recalls Skynyrd, the Allmans (more Gregg than Duane), and the less pharmaceutical musings of latter day down-home stylists like the Crowes. This isn’t the pretty young girl who took the place of Lee in Ozzy’s band. Nor is it Pride & Glory, even if that project is closest in sound to this one. It most certainly isn’t his divisive Black Label Society, all faux Sons of Anarchy posturing.
Thing is, I have liked all those iterations of Wylde’s career. He kept a bit of fun in Ozzy’s corporate caravan. Pride & Glory suggested Wylde’s true influences. And Black Label Society is good clean fun dressed up like a scruffy biker, topped with skulls. Some might call that a poseur in search of a “theme.” I tend to think of it as a performer who has varied tastes, and knows how to cater to his fans, whoever they might be at the time. Wylde also strikes me as someone who truly enjoys making music, who appreciates his fans and the opportunities he has been given, and has worked hard to carve out a career and cancel out his demons while doing so. It is hard for me not to root for an artist like that.
Book of Shadows II is, to my ear, his most consistent offering to date. It doesn’t plead to be heard. It doesn’t sound rehearsed even as it settles into the well-worn grooves that came before. In fact, if there is a fault in said consistency, it is this: it floats along in the same key and forces you to note the minor deviations. I’m fine with that. This is to Southern Rock what Dazed and Confused was to movie making. And that is “alright, alright, alright” with me.
Another highlight: you can still get the CD, and a (stupid looking) limited-edition poster, for less than $10.
Reader Comments (8)
1 Pride & Glory
2 No Rest for the Wicked
3 Book of Shadows
4 Book of Shadows ll
5 BLS
Im not a big fan of BLS. The first one was ok but not much after that. I would love to see a new P&G. Saw that killer tour twice.
It's refreshing to hear him totally Metalizing the stuff and quite frankly, after all these years of the same ol' same ol' he's giving the material a nice refreshing twist -- twisted Metal, that is!
When I was first listening to the stuff, I was on the floor laughing uncontrollably just picturing their faces as he shreds through it all. Absolutely hilarious!
p.s. Another hilarious Wylde moment to experience is the YouTube video of him shredding up "Tush" in the parking lot of a strip mall. Talk about overkill! And sublimely so. Pricelessly killarious! The guy is an absolute bad*ss killer!
Don't get me wrong, I dig Zakk. he's a Jersey boy, and I used to run into him on and off when he was playing in Zyris. That said, I thought he showed a total lack of respect for the guys in ABB when he played with them. Granted, he was 26 at the time, and probably believed his own hype too much. He didn't grasp the obvious fact that this was an ABB concert, not a zakk Wyld concert. I caught ABB on that '93 tour when they played waterloo Village in Stanhope, NJ. thank goodness the Zakk Wyld experiment was over by then, and David Grissom had taken his place. Grissom showed far more taste in his playing than Zakk.
It would be interesting to get Zakk's thoughts on that ABB gig now that he is almost 50. I wonder if he would be embarrased by his playing and conduct, or if he still thinks he did the right thing by overplaying and trying to make it all about him.
And thanks for the added details. On at least one song, Wylde sounds like he is channeling the "I'm No Angel" era. And I don't think that is a bad thing.
Like I said, I really like this CD. I wish he focused on this style.
Bob, etc.: I bet he looks back on that period through a dull haze. I also bet he would bow to those he tried to overshadow. Like I said, Wylde has shown a lot of growth. He seems to be in a good place.
Despite being an atheist, I do believe in hope, faith, love, energy and a lot of other meaningful virtues, and I offer no pre-determined apology for speaking (as Daisley writes), for facts sake. Again, I can't speak for Zakk Wylde, I can only offer my take on his presumed state of mind approaching 50yo:
Zakk's intercourse with the other muscians and his response might be able to be summed up this way: Zakk vs. them = the Anita Hill/Clarence Thomas controversy.
It wasn't about the truth.
It was about them wanting to win so much, at any cost, that they didn't want to know the truth.
And, I can post unequivocally that as far as sexual harassment is concerned, the hill/thomas accounting happens on all levels and is universal. there is no difference between what thomas did to hill, and what I witnessed in my social work field with women in power positions with men who were the minority.
however, the one big difference was the overall, general attitude was that, as a male, you are supposed to (and expected to) suck it up and deal with it...and it you can't, your will be banished.
To this day, my best supervisors [ever], were female, but conversely, the worst offenders were the females in supervisor positions who believed that they needed to play by stereotypical males attitudes. They can look in the mirror and figure it out for themselves. I've slung enough mud over the years on this website to go any further.
For facts sake...a first hand account.