Ozzy Osbourne: Death Becomes Him

So I'm sitting here listening to the new Ozzy album, Black Rain. And while the polished metal is all very overstated, over-the-top, over-Ozzy (he's stuck in no man's land or something), it's also strangely comforting, akin to eating Funyuns for dinner or watching The Last Boy Scout. Zakk Wylde's guitar is predictably badass and berzerko (well, at least for the first two tracks). But what I dig best is that, for all his ant-snorting, drug-hoovering, ATV-wrecking antics, Ozzy's voice is still pretty good. Sure, there's no doubt some computer trickery going on, but not as much as you'd think. Ozzy might not be able to stand upright -- or, you know, talk -- but the tottering 58-year-old can still sing pretty well, that searing, soaring archangel wail. Go figure.