By Greg Maki
Tribute bands are a dime a dozen, but few have the pedigree of Zakk Sabbath. If you found your way to this site, you should need no introduction to Zakk Wylde, who has held down guitar duties for Ozzy Osbourne on and off since 1987, built his own band Black Label Society into a massive metal machine over the past quarter century and now is ably filling the shoes of Dimebag Darrell in the new incarnation of Pantera. Then there’s the thunderous rhythm section of Rob “Blasko” Nicholson, who has played bass for Rob Zombie and/or Ozzy since 1998, and drummer Joey Castillo, whose resume includes stints with Danzig, Queens of the Stone Age and Eagles of Death Metal. It’s hard to imagine a trio better qualified to pay tribute to the originators of the genre of music that has brought our lives together today.
Following 2020’s “Vertigo,” its version of Black Sabbath’s monumental 1970 debut album (named for the record label that originally released it in the U.K.), Zakk Sabbath returns with the double LP “Doomed Forever Forever Doomed,” this time tackling Black Sabbath’s classic second and third albums, “Paranoid” (1970) and “Master of Reality” (1971). With these two records featuring some of the best known and most beloved songs in the history of metal, the task facing Zakk and company might have been even more daunting than it was the first time around, but they rise to the occasion on each of the 16 tracks presented here, capturing the raging, adventurous spirit of early Black Sabbath while retaining their own identity. Wylde sounds, at times, eerily similar to Osbourne on the mic while never making you doubt who you’re hearing. In the same vein, his devotion to Tony Iommi’s mighty riffs is abundantly clear even as he throws in his own flourishes, particularly on the solos, making this a worthy addition to his own discography and not merely a note-for-note reproduction.
Blasko and Castillo back Wylde up with slamming rhythms—Castillo perhaps with a little less of the swing Bill Ward often injected on the drums—and it’s all captured with crisp, clear production and mixing. There’s no topping the originals, which will occupy a revered place in the hallowed halls of heavy metal history until the end of time, and I’m sure that’s not even Zakk Sabbath’s goal. However, the punchier, more modern sound of “Doomed Forever Forever Doomed” breathes a bit of new life even into such treasured tracks as “War Pigs,” “Paranoid,” “Iron Man,” “Sweet Leaf” and “Children of the Grave”—songs so ingrained into the fabric of metal that the genre would be vastly different, or maybe wouldn’t even exist at all, if they never had come to be.
We’ve gotten no indication on how far into the Black Sabbath catalog Zakk Sabbath plans to go, but based on what it’s churned out so far, any future recordings will be more delicious treats for fans of both Black Sabbath and Zakk Wylde. (I’d love to hear this trio’s take on some of the more bonkers material from “Technical Ecstasy” [1976] and “Never Say Die!” [1978].) Simply put, tribute albums don’t get any better than “Doomed Forever Forever Doomed.”
Rating: 9.5/10
Magnetic Eye Records – March 1, 2024
LINKS:
Buy “Doomed Forever Forever Doomed.”
zakksabbath.bandcamp.com
www.facebook.com/officialzakksabbath
www.instagram.com/zakksabbath
www.twitter.com/zakk_sabbath
www.zakkwylde.com
Magnetic Eye Records
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