Is it magic? Slight of hand? A puppet trick? With Ozzy, it’s never been clear to me. It’s unclear whether he is being funny, whether he is in on a joke others are telling, whether he is the butt of the joke, or if any of it is funny to begin with. It’s unclear how much of the act inspired Spinal Tap or, by the 80s and 90s, how much the parody inspired the act. It’s unclear how his voice can be both crystalline and cage-rattling. And, most curiously, it is unclear what was keeping him on his feet throughout the 1980s. Was it the drugs? The money? Sharon? Guitarist Zakk Wylde? Drummer Randy Castillo? Lemmy Kilmister? By the end of the decade, Ozzy was Metal’s very own bleeding, un-killable Rocky Balboa. He would not go down. You could not watch the fight and you could not not watch the fight.

And then, finally and miraculously, Ozzy got sober. 1991s “No More Tears,” released in the final, high days of Hair Metal and just before the germs of Alternative, was the first album Ozzy had ever made not fucked up. He was forty three, a father of two, no longer a nightmare inducing demon. While the 80s were creatively inconsistent, he still had a viable, international career and a fortune to protect, thanks largely to his wife and manager. Physically older than his actual age and on the precipice of a tectonic shift in popular music taste, Ozzy actually had a lot on the line as the 90s opened.

It seems likely that Sharon, if not Ozzy realized this. For “No More Tears” s/he reassembled the A-Team -- Zakk Wylde on guitars, Randy Castillo on drums and bassist Bob Daisley. Ozzy’s dear friend Lemmy joins for spiritual support and helped write three songs, including Ozzy’s last great hit. Everyone on the album shows up to work. This band is the entire 1950s Ford Motor Plant. They make heavy things. They make them tight. They make them loud. They make them with pride. They make them for people to buy.

On an album full of virtuoso performances, Zakk Wylde’s playing is astronomical. Heavy Metal may have never been gifted a more suitable lead guitarist than Wylde. Born in Bayonne, New Jersey, his first band was called Stone Henge. One of his four children is named “Sabbath Page.” He can play every flavor in Metal. And his fluency and ability to switch on a dime is breathtaking. At one moment, his guitar is mainlining adrenaline. The next moment the guitar is squealing like a tightening vice around testicles. He can then downshift into a freight train, only to then pull out an acoustic twelve string, seemingly from nowhere, to play chiming melodies that sound like Big Star. And, often, he will do all of this in a single song. I don’t always like it, of course, but it almost never ceases to amaze.

Though Wylde is the MVP here, he Ozzy and Castillo are indisputably a unit and co-wrote much of the album. There are no cogs on this record. There is only the machine. Ozzy’s voice, always the prized instrument, is laid on thick. It’s like a hood ornament -- up front on full display.  Collectively, they sound entirely tuned into the balance required to assimilate 70s Metal nostalgia with modern thrash and 80s power balladry. Against all odds, they mostly pull it off. “No More Tears” has something for every Ozzy fan and a couple of things for those (like me) who never were fans to begin with.

From the opening thunder of “Mr. Tinkertrain,” you can feel the hormones, smell the hairspray and hear the fireworks. Save for the pedophilic horror theme (which is hard to dismiss 30 years later), the opener stamps out the template of heavy freight bass, gymnastic guitar solos and a wholly melodic bridge. Ozzy is layered upon Ozzy upon Ozzy to great effect. Like most of the up tempo Metal on this album, this track is tight, professional and expensive sounding. Ozzy establishes that he is going for it one last time before the empire falls and he’s back to booze and on to reality television.

“No More Tears” is arguably the apex of the Metal Power Ballad. It scoffs at “Every Rose Has Its Thorn.” It doesn’t cross the street to spit on “When the Children Cry.” Even “November Rain,” with all of its strings and Stephanie Seymour, cannot hold a candle in the wind to the two centerpieces of this album. One of those two tracks, “Mama, I’m Coming Home,” glistens with twelve string acoustic guitar and a solo that sounds bigger and as lyrical as anything Slash showed us. An ode to his Mrs. Osborne and co-written by Lemmy, it was an absolute smash and a flawless four minutes of sensitive Metal. The title track, however, is epic in the way Jim Steinman or “Bohemian Rhapsody” is. Eschewing the blunt force normally associated with Metal,. The seven plus minute song about stalking a murderer is batshit awesome. The bass line would make Faith No More blush. The synth would tie up Styx. There’s a hard stop in the middle then followed by a string and keyboard interlude that sounds not unlike E.L.O. Ozzy and the band throw absolutely all they have at this track. And, amazingly, it lands.

While there are no abject failures on the album, there is a lot of nostalgia. Ozzy does a lot of reflection on the life of a rock star -- the drugs, the temptation, the glory. He is frequently honest about the delirious high of it all and that he feels like he was born for the part. It is clear that the temptation will always tug at him. But it is also clear, that with age, the carnage feels heavier. While the introspection is fine, there are moments when the band veers into a flavor of Thrash that is so close to Spinal Tap that it’s hard to discern what the original is. It should be said that Spinal Tap were not only great at parody, they were also deft with a melody and a chorus. So, while Ozzy’s “Desire” and “A.V.H.” sound largely derivative, they also manage to be tuneful and very well played. Of all of the headbangers on “No More Tears,” “Hellraiser” stands out as the best chant-along of the bunch. It would prove to be a hit for Motorhead and was, amazingly, the third time that the title had been used for a widely released Rock song. It has since been used as a title at least four other times. Clearly, one can be both derivative and excellent.

Underneath the thick layers of Oz and the guitar wizardry are excellent melodies throughout. “Road to Nowhere” is as tuneful as any late 80s power ballad. It’s a hold up the lighter, be careful of the hair and pretend you’re not tearing up sort of song. Elsewhere, as on “S.I.N.” and “Time After Time,” Ozzy and the band have an uncanny knack for tucking in Replacements and Big Star hooks inside the Metal. The deftness of this feat, amid the gargantuan bass and and bone crunching guitars, is quite impressive.

“Impressive” is, in fact, how I would describe “No More Tears.” The production feels rich, capturing the complexity, scale and decibels of the performances.  Ozzy sounds both sincere and like a showman. His voice, as always, carries both torture and melody at once. Even at its absolute best, this music is not my cuppa tea. In fact, it’s unlikely I will ever play the record, in full, again. Candidly, it’s a little exhausting and, if you’re not careful, I bet it could bruise your privates. But, for nearly an hour, I could also marvel at these past prime warriors showing the full arsenal and wish I had another foot of hair and some eyeliner.

by Matty Wishnow