The Legendary ZAKK WYLDE is back and ‘Catacombs of the Black Vatican’ will stand as an enduring testament to Black Label Society’s sheer force of will and mastery of each and every musical neighbourhood the hard rock titans choose to stomp through.
The aggressive bite of the barnstorming BLS banger “Damn the Flood” sits comfortably right alongside the stripped down, emotionally searing “Angel of Mercy”, “Scars” and “Shades of Gray”. The album’s opening tracks, “Fields of Unforgiveness” and lead single “My Dying Time”, drop the throttle into swampy, down-tempo menace that wouldn’t sound out of place in a Classic Rock band’s catalogue nor at the creative height of the grunge era. Now over 15 years into their storied saga, Black Label Society’s music is heard at the finest of backyard BBQs and has earned the band’s founder accolades from Revolver, Kerrang!, Metal Hammer and every guitar magazine on the planet. The BLS biker kutte is as ubiquitous at hard rock and metal shows as a black t-shirt. Long before “Sons of Anarchy” or “Duck Dynasty”, Black Label Society manhandled the wishy-washy status quo and forced brotherhood, machismo and loyalty oath-making back into the culture, across a mountainous catalogue, countless international tours.
There’s a beauty in caveman like simplicity, in the break-bottles-and-break-necks gusto of a loud power chord. To many listeners, Wylde invented pinch harmonics every bit as much as Chuck Berry’s dreamt up the duck walk. When the “Guitar Hero” franchise was all the rage, Wylde was a playable character in the game. “Every time you’re going to make a new record, it’s exciting” he says of the run-up to the creation of Catacombs of the Black Vatican. “When you’re in the studio you can approach it like Salvador Dali where you’ve got a blank canvas in front of you. You can paint a little bit, sit back and look at it and go, ‘Oh man, let’s add a little more red over here, let’s make this darker over there’. This album is the crowning glory for BLS!!!
- First BLACK LABEL SOCIETY album since 2010’s Order of the Black
- Features 2 bonus tracks with one exclusive to Australia and New Zealand
- Black Label Society frontman Zakk Wylde is a true rock and guitar legend