With ease, Ozzy cruised into his debut opus, 'Blizzard Of Ozz', assembling an impressive bunch of musicians in Daisley (bass), Kerslake (drums) and most notably Randy Rhoads, a young, attractive and impish guitar wizard whose life would be cut tragically short.
'Blizzard...' doesn't offer the doomy atmospherics of Sabbath's mammoth catalogue, but instead has a more upbeat rock 'n' roll feel, and for a debut album it remains a classic to this day.
'I Don't Know' is a solid rocker, but it's 'Crazy Train' that sets the mood, a solid riff from Rhoads and Ozzy bleating the infamous words, "All aboaaaard!". It's a track Ozzy rarely excluded from his set-list after decades of touring.
'Goodbye To Romance' is a subtle and unexpected number, Ozzy showing his sentimental side with this track that starts where 'Changes' left off.
Rhoads then gets his few minutes to shine with 'Dee' which adds as a perfect into to 'Suicide Solution', a superb heavy metal track that caused controversy in the '80s after fans of the band and the song committed suicide after allegedly listening to it. Despite the misinterpretations, 'Suicide...' is one of the finest rock tracks, and Side Two's opener, 'Mr Crowley' is another, bathed in satanic overtones, which surely at the time caused offence despite the fact it's a simple tale of the real-life black magician Aleister Crowley.
After the exceptional tracks previous, the last three on the album are very good, but lack that magical wonder of the rest of the album, but even so, 'No Bone Movies', 'Revelation (Mother Earth)' and 'Steal Away (The Night)', are not just filler material, making 'Blizzard...' one of Ozzy's finest records. 9/10
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