Well the answer to that is quite simply: Hell yeah! Black Rain is a breath of fresh air for Ozzy fans, bringing back the sound of the early days on releases like Blizzard Of Ozz and Diary Of A Madman, but obviously with much better production quality. "Not Going Away" states what we all know just by listening to that track, the Ozzy is here to stay, and "I Don't Wanna Stop" will remind everyone of the classic track "Crazy Train".

The album's guitar work is great and heavy, pure and simple. The songs are definitely much faster then the recent releases, and practically a one-eighty from Down To Earth, which was a very long awaited release. Black Rain does have it's set of slower songs too, such as "Lay Your World On Me" and "Here For You", but even these tracks are done well. The only issue is that Ozzy's voice isn't as good as it was years ago, and his work on "Lay Your World On Me", in combination with a slight vocal distortion during the main verses, will more then likely aggrivate you and maybe have you skip the track next time you listen to the disc.

Black Rain is the return of Ozzy Osbourne that we have all been waiting for! With songs in the vein of his classics, like "I Don't Wanna Stop" and "Silver", the album is a blend of recent and classic Ozzy that will remind you of the good old days. While some tracks may get irritating after various plays, and "Lay Your World On Me" playing on the urge to hit skip on the first spin of the disc, this album is possibly the closest thing we'll ever see to classic Ozzy perfection.

written by Jason Thomas Weiss

Playing time: 46.29