For me, No Rest for the Wicked ranks right up there with Blizzard of Ozz and Diary of a Madman in the discussion of Ozzy Osbourne’s best solo records. It was a groundbreaking album for him in several ways, not the least of which was a fresh-faced 20-year-old shredder on guitar who completely changed the sound.
That clean-shaven kid with the teased and frosted hair is practically unrecognizable from the gnarly, scruffy, bearded berserker we know Zakk Wylde as today, but he infused Ozzy’s music with a new energy and helped the metal godfather release his heaviest solo record to that point.
For whatever reason, I never connected with the Jake E. Lee version of Osbourne’s band. I still think Bark at the Moon is a very, very overrated record. To this day, there are only a few songs from it that make their way into my playlist. Then came The Ultimate Sin, which was a different animal. I actually really like that one, but it’s definitely of its time in the big hair portion of the late 1980s, and it’s one of the few Ozzy Osbourne albums that feels really dated to me. We needed a little more spice, and we got it.
Zakk Wylde announces his presence to the world on the first track and lead single from No Rest for the Wicked, which arrived on Sept. 28, 1988. “Miracle Man” boasted a wicked-sounding riff that established his style and set the tone for the rest of the record. TV preachers are an easy target and, in those days, were a favorite subject for metal bands – but Wylde’s screaming riff, punctuated by his trademark pinch harmonic squeals, raised this one above the average. More importantly, it was like nothing that we’d ever heard from Osbourne before.
That same energy carries throughout the record, notably on my favorite track, “Tattooed Dancer.” I can’t listen to the song without cranking it up, and the manic guitar riff remains one of my favorites from Wylde.
Still, it wasn’t always the wild riffing and shredding that caught fan attention. Probably the best-known song from No Rest for the Wicked is also one of the simplest from a guitar standpoint. The E-D-A progression of the main riff on “Crazy Babies” can practically be played with one finger, and then Wylde throws in a G squeal to top it off, but it’s a catchy riff and gives Osbourne some room to deliver a crazed-sounding vocal that fits perfectly.
Likewise, the sliding power chords of “Breaking All the Rules” can be played by pretty much any novice. Yet it has such an ominous, almost Black Sabbath-like sound that it remains a favorite from No Rest for the Wicked . Though the whole record is wilder and heavier, it’s one of the few truly dark numbers. It’s joined, surprisingly, by the soaring semi-ballad “Fire in the Sky,” which has such a forlorn tone for a fairly heavy song.
Another bit of trivia: No Rest for the Wicked also contained Ozzy Osbourne’s first “hidden track.” Though now familiar and overdone, it was the fairly new thing to do then. I still don’t quite understand the concept since by hiding it, you seem to be saying it’s not really good enough to go on the album. That’s certainly not the case with “Hero.” At least Osbourne didn’t put a bunch of blank one-second tracks or 10 minutes of silence between the end of the “official” record and “Hero,” a couple of the more annoying practices of the “hidden track.”
It has to be said that, lyrically, this is probably not the best of Osbourne’s records. There’s the TV preacher song and a tune about Charles Manson (“Bloodbath in Paradise”) that are both fairly cliché metal topics. “Demon Alcohol” definitely doesn’t have the same style as its counterpart “Suicide Solution” from Blizzard of Ozz, and as much as I like “Tattooed Dancer,” I have to admit that it’s not exactly poetry. That said, Zakk Wylde’s guitar work and the much-needed infusion of excitement that he brought to the project carries it through.
The 17-year-old kid blasting No Rest for the Wicked through the little tinny four-inch speakers in his truck in the school parking lot thought it was one of the coolest things he’d ever heard. A lot has changed for that kid over the years, but one thing hasn’t: No Rest for the Wicked is still blasting out of my truck speakers, and I still think it’s one of the coolest records I’ve ever heard.
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