That Metal Thread

No matter how many times I hear him throughout the years, he never becomes stale. The lyricism, the voice, the emotion, 1 in a million he was.
Good list. Junior's Eyes is one of the best songs on Never Say Die!, Geezer and Bill are funky as hell on that one. And Dirty Women has such a good riff. The Writ, as already stated, is a masterpiece. Apparently it's one of the few songs that was actually written by Ozzy, according to his biography. If that's true, then he really knocked it out the park. It's such a pissed off song, I love it.
"The Writ" is one of only a handful of Black Sabbath songs to feature lyrics composed by vocalist Osbourne who typically relied on bassist Butler for lyrics. The song was inspired by the frustrations Osbourne felt at the time, as Black Sabbath's former manager Patrick Meehan was suing the band after having been fired. The song viciously attacks the music business in general and is a savage diatribe directed towards Meehan specifically ("Are you Satan? Are you man?"), with Osbourne revealing in his memoir, "I wrote most of the lyrics myself, which felt a bit like seeing a shrink. All the anger I felt towards Meehan came pouring out." During this period, the band began to question if there was any point to recording albums and touring endlessly "just to pay the lawyers". Thematically, "The Writ" and "Megalomania" are intertwined, according to drummer Ward, as they both deal with the same tensions arising from these ongoing legal troubles.
 
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I drifted away from music from Ozzy. What really got me into metal was playing some Black Sabbath/Ozzy songs on Guitar Hero and that eventually lead to me listening to bands I ghreatly enjoy today, like Sodom, Cripper, Ex Deo and whatnot. I'm not to question the cause of death because that is of course the privacy of his family. He had a lot of health problems in the end. It will catch up to all of us.
 
Any thoughts on Savatage ? I have been revisiting a couple of LPs recently, and I have mixed feelings about the band. I went through Sirens/Dungeons are Calling, Power of the Night, Hall of the Mountain King and Gutter Ballet and the Oliva Brothers singing and guitar work is great, in general I do enjoy the overall sound and songwriting but once you're past the famous songs the dip in quality is just really noticeable. Worse than many other bands, I would say. Any recommendations regarding bands that sound similar ?
 
Any recommendations regarding bands that sound similar ?
I remember I had a spell about 7 years ago where I listened to Power of the Night (that whole album) basically on repeat. I'm not super into Savatage anymore except for Hall of the Mountain King and couple other songs off various album here or there, but I remember thinking Pagan Altar hit maybe similar highs to them. Completely different sound though. Savatage, for me, stands in its own class of quality USPM with great theatrical elements. Their albums almost play out like movies, and I normally don't like that stuff, but Savatage really honed their own sound throughout the 80's and 90's.

There might be others that can recommend stuff that more closely resembles the theatrical sound you're looking for, but off the top of my head I can recommend checking out Fates Warning (slightly more straightforward US Prog/Power), Queensrÿche (pretty famous, you're probably already familiar with them), Crimson Glory, Virgin Steele (maybe the closest thing I can think of to Savatage's sound), Wild Dogs, Titan Force, Banshee, Halloween (Michigan represent), Sword (Canada), Accept (not really theatrical, but close highs as far as power metal is concerned, also massively popular), Sortilège, Demons & Wizards (I thought about recommending Iced Earth too but this is a little closer to power metal), and finally the aforementioned Pagan Altar. I'm actually not sure why but Pagan Altar reminds of Savatage. or atleast whenever I think of Savatage I also think of Pagan Altar, although sonically they're not too connected.
 
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I'm gonna come clean, I really like "All Moving Parts Stand Still". Judging by Spotify play counts, it might be the single most frequently skipped Ozzy Sabbath track.

 
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