“I’ll make you scream, I’ll make you defecate,” cracks Ozzy Osbourne on the opening track on his dozenth studio album and first solo outing in nearly a decade. Well, it’s nice to see the Prince of Darkness hasn’t lost his sense of humour. Even better: He hasn’t lost his wonderfully evil touch on the musical side either. Despite a host of physical ailments — which now include Parkinson’s, as he recently revealed — wicked wizard Oz is in fiendishly fine form on these 11 energized tracks, wailing and yowling and cackling and howling with the same demonic lunacy and intensity that has possessed him since the opening seconds of Black Sabbath’s eponymous debut LP half a century ago. Give props to producer and guitarist Andrew Watt, who surrounds Ozzy with suitably massive, majestic and malevolent sonics and ambience — not to mention an all-star band that includes Slash and Tom Morello, Duff McKagan, Chad Smith, Charlie Puth, new bestie Post Malone and even old pal Elton John. Not that Osbourne needs the help; even in declining health at 71 — though really, it’s a bloody miracle he’s actually alive in the first place — he makes it clear that he’s the real Iron Man on hell-raising, fire-breathing riff-fests like Under the Graveyard, Eat Me, It’s A Raid and Straight to Hell. Bottom line: Ordinary Man is as bat-bitingly good as anything he’s done in the past couple of decades. Bust out the Depends and let ’er rip.
