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Mar 04, 2024 Web Exclusive By Frank Valish

Zakk Wilde famously took over for Jake E. Lee in Ozzy Osbourne’s band and played with Osbourne through the late ’80s and ’90s, as well as off and on afterward. Rob “Blasko” Nicholson played with Rob Zombie in the late ’90s and 2000s, and has played bass for Ozzy since 2003. Drummer Joey “C” Castillo has played with a veritable who’s who of alt-rock and metal bands, including most reputably Danzig and Queens of the Stone Age. The trio makes up Zakk Sabbath, the most comprehensive, talented, and unabashed Black Sabbath-worshipping cover band this side of England.

In 2020, Wilde, Blasko, and Castillo released Vertigo, a song-by-song cover of the first Black Sabbath record, titled as such in tribute to Sabbath’s original record label. Now the band is continuing to make its way through Sabbath’s catalog, with Doomed Forever Forever Doomed running through 1970’s Paranoid and ’71’s Master of Reality. And it’s as faithful and masterful as one might expect from a group of such diehard virtuosos.

One might ask why we need a track-by-track cover of Black Sabbath’s ouevre. But the answer is, with these guys, a resounding why the hell not?! Zakk Wilde never sounds more inspired than when he’s playing Sabbath songs, and Blasko and Castillo play the parts of Geezer Butler and Bill Ward expertly. The only qualm with the band’s last album, Vertigo, was that Wilde’s vocals didn’t always hit the Ozzy mark. But with Doomed Forever Forever Doomed, he sounds more like classic Ozzy than ever. He’s even adopted some of Osbourne’s specific vocal inflections. Which makes this double album the perfect thing to file right next to your Black Sabbath records. (www.zakksabbath.bandcamp.com) (http://us.merhq.net)

Author rating: 7/10