The Ozzman Goeth
Remembering Ozzy Osbourne
Well, I had something else planned this week but life and death have intervened. By now you’ve heard the news. Ozzy Osbourne, singer for Black Sabbath, biter of bat-heads, snorter of ants, passed away this week at the age of 76. Only three weeks ago Osbourne performed for the final time at a giant all day concert that culminated in a reunion with the rest of the original lineup of Black Sabbath. When that concert was first announced I wrote that heavy metal was throwing its own funeral. I did not intend that provocative headline to be quite so literal. Watching footage from Birmingham it definitely seemed like the end was near. Still, when I received the first of a day’s worth of text messages informing me of Ozzy’s passing I stopped in my tracks, jaw agape. For a guy that’s lived most of his life in the orbit of heavy metal, learning that the world no longer contained Ozzy Osbourne is like waking up one day to find that the Atlantic Ocean disappeared.
I don’t think it’s an exaggeration to say that Osbourne was the single most famous metal musician on earth. He was the de facto face of the genre since its inception, and will likely continue to be its face for as long as anyone looks heavy metal’s way. To be aware at all of popular culture is to know something about Ozzy Osbourne, whether that be through his music with Black Sabbath and his solo career, his headline-grabbing rock star antics, his bumbling presence on 00s reality TV, or his surprisingly robust resume of cameos on rap songs. This is an incredible destiny for a working class dropout from an unglamorous English factory town. Moreover, it is a well deserved destiny. If we take seriously the idea that heavy metal starts with Black Sabbath’s Black Sabbath, then Ozzy Osbourne deserves at least 25% credit for the rest of the racket that followed. Without him I’d likely have different friends, have spent my 20s working different jobs, and would make completely different music if I made it at all.
Ozzy belonged to a small circle of musicians whose consistent proximity to death seemed to render them immortal. Now Keith Richards stands alone. Given Osbourne’s herculean appetite for drugs and alcohol it is a near miracle that he stuck around as long as he did. You roll the dice on that lifestyle 10 times and I doubt he cracks 70 in over half of them. Osbourne made the most of those extra lives. The man completed all sorts of side quests. He’s been to the White House. He sang ‘Take Me Out To The Ballgame” during a 7th inning stretch for a Cubs game.1 He filmed a surreal and unlistenable Christmas duet with Jessica Simpson. There was and will never be again anyone quite like Ozzy.
A lot of the people I’ve talked to since Ozzy’s death have said something to the effect of “he went out on his own terms.” I appreciate and understand the sentiment, though I hesitate to say that Father Time didn’t have a hand in negotiating those terms. Surely if Ozzy had his druthers he wouldn’t have spent his final concert confined to a chair, hobbled by Parkinson’s. The mind boggles at what kind of spectacle he’d have constructed if his last act was truly on his own terms. But I get it. The man’s last public appearance was spent entertaining an adoring crowd by singing spooky songs that made him famous. Those are at least the terms that he lived by. One of my first thoughts after hearing the news was of David Bowie, who released his final album Blackstar only days before his own death back in 2016. Bowie wasn’t the only dead rock star I thought of in that moment. Of course I thought of Dio, Black Sabbath’s other iconic singer. I thought of Lemmy. I also thought of metal legends only slightly younger than Osbourne. When I heard the news I was coincidentally listening to some late period Iron Maiden. Rob Halford’s no spring chicken. Neither is King Diamond. Heck even the American thrash guys are getting on in years. In short, I’ve spent this week acutely aware of the mortality of the whole of heavy metal.
Look. My dad’s birthday was the day after Ozzy died. They are roughly the same age. I just had my birthday last Sunday. My dad’s fine, he’s on vacation. My point is that I am confronted with the necessity of not taking certain things for granted just because they’ve been a consistent part of my life up until now. Though I couldn’t make the final Black Sabbath concert myself, I’m beyond grateful that it happened. We need to get in the habit of celebrating these legends, because we’re going to have a lot of practice getting it right as they fade away.
# # # # # The Promo Zone # # # # #
Like I mentioned above, it was my birthday on Sunday. I don’t ask for much these days, but if you’d like to give me a nice lil serotonin boost, you are more than welcome to do one of two things. Heck, you can do both if you’re feeling extra generous! First, you can purchase a digital album, a shirt, or a cassette from my bandcamp page. Personally, I’d recommend the album The Lonely Atom. Second, you can subscribe to this newsletter for $5 a month. That’s like a cup of coffee and a tip for the barista a month. For that low cost you’ll get access to exclusive playlists, behind the scenes looks at my music, and archival footage from my gigs along with other illusive bonuses.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ Listening Diary ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Listen to this year’s running diary on Apple Music.
“Harvest Sky” by Oklou (Choke Enough, 2025)
Choke Enough got a lot of critical buzz but I wasn’t swayed until I saw People | Places label head and future/present Lamniformes collaborator Andrew Noseworthy gush about it on Instagram. Cool record. I’m particularly taken by this track and it’s dreamy rendition of turn of the millennium European dance pop.
“Immortal Hands” by Stereolab (Instant Holograms on Metal Film, 2025)
I’ve got a working theory that Stereolab have the highest approval rating of any band on earth these days. They hit every mark and every key demographic. Musicians love them. Music super-tasters with bloated RYM catalogs love them. Visual artists vibe with them. They have tacit lefty approval and appeal to both zoomer and millennial sensibilities as well as their own Gen X cohort. They’re proggy, smooth, accessible but sophisticated, easy to listen to but not without purposeful friction. This song demonstrates all of the above and more.
“Animal Death Already Breathing” by YHWH Nailgun (45 Pounds, 2025)
The freaky stuff is back on the menu, boys. Any act in 2025 that reminds me of Liars, Battles, and other one-word-name naughty-aughty experimental indie rock bands is doing the lord’s work. Great drumming too.
“Kismat” by Bloodywood (Nu Delhi, 2025)
First off, LMAO at Nu Delhi. No one could accuse Bloodywood of lacking self awareness. They offer nothing but the refreshing simplicity of a cold soda on a hot day, with all the low stakes thrills and chills of pairing action movies with air conditioning. If you’ve got a sweet tooth for summer blockbuster pop metal, why not indulge with a band that offers a unique spin on the confections?
“Lucky Superstar” by Pictoria Vark (Nothing Sticks, 2025)
Big crunchy indie rock in the vein of Yowler or Pedro The Lion. I’ve only ever seen Pictorvia Vark as a solo act, so it’s been exciting to hear how she arranges her songs for a fleshed out band. Lots of great choices here, like the tambourine over half time drums or the cello that eases in near the end of the song. Heck of a guitar solo, too.
\ \ \ \ \ Micro Reviews / / / / /
Here are five micro reviews of albums from my vast Rate Your Music catalog. Long time Lamniformes Instagram followers will recognize these from my stories, however they’ve been re-edited and spruced up with links.
Black Up by Shabazz Palaces (2011) - Rap
A quintessential summer album, though not in the typical sense. This isn’t sunny day music, it’s a record for nights just cool enough to dry off your sweat but still humid with the mystery of late arriving darkness. Shabazz Palaces is one of the cooler reinventions in hip-hop: a vet of a long gone era of alternative rap applies his old head first principles to then modern tech. As such Black Up doesn’t feel like it belongs to any era or narrative. It is askew to history. That might make this record sound stranger than it is. Don’t get me wrong, it’s certainly unconventional. You’ll never hear this much slapback reverb on another rap album. But beneath the psychedelic effects and the ramshackle sample manipulation this record plays on the time honored tropes and topics typical to the genre. Acclimate yourself to the sub bass frequency of its lingo and you’ll find a classic hidden in the shadows.
Vespertine by Björk (2001) - Art Pop
Björk’s best album, and the perfect midpoint between the artsy pop of her 90s records and the full on experimental work that’s defined her career since. Vespertine is an album about the magnitude of intimacy driven by micro beats and macro feelings. On her podcast, Björk said that this was the first album she made on her own laptop, building tracks out of samples of small, quiet sounds. This “zoomed in” sound and a (slightly) more subdued vocal performance draw the listener into Björk’s domestic headspace. The more orchestral elements (choirs, strings, a LOT of pitched percussion) give voice to the subjective intensity of her feelings. While Björk has always been a melody-forward artist, her best work is powered by equally ornate rhythms. Listen to “Heirloom”, “Unison” or “Pagan Poetry” and tell me this baby doesn’t groove hard.
Everything Is Fire by Ulcerate (2009) - Death Metal
I don’t remember where or how I first heard of this New Zealand death metal band, but I’m certain I heard their music before I ever saw them written about on any of the underground blogs. No one I knew IRL had heard of them either, which gave me a rare chance to pitch them with my own fresh one-liners. “It’s like Gorguts meets Neurosis” I told the other death metal freaks at college. That flavor profile also happened to be the coolest thing I could imagine at age 19. By fusing slow burning dissonance with lightning fast drumming, punctuated by sudden drops into eerie near-silence, Ulcerate signaled a shift in tech death away from the neoclassical sound of the 00s toward more abstract territory. Heck of an appropriate album title, this sounds like a roaring inferno from second 0. Once you acclimate to the heat there’s plenty of intricate interplay between the two guitars to enjoy, though personally I have a hard time with the drums these days. It’s technically impressive to be sure, but the nonstop 32nd notes flatten out the arrangements and make it hard to differentiate between songs.
Mount Eerie by The Microphones (2003) - Indie Rock
Phil Elverum retires The Microphones with both a bang and a whisper. This final record pushes his “studio as instrument” writing style to symphonic extremes. Mount Eerie is continuous 40 minute piece broken into five acts, following as Elverum ascends the titular mountain and confronts the personification of death, his inner self, and the true face of the universe. It is a grand and maybe even pretentious project, but Elverum’s deftness as a songwriter and arranger bring the high flying philosophical notions down to earth. Like any trip through arduous terrain it requires patience and closely trained attention to the details, but hey, it takes a lot less time to surmount than your average session of Death Stranding. A masterpiece of low budget text painting and “it takes a village” do-it-together collaboration, and fwiw a huge influence on my album Sisyphean.
Clear Moon by Mount Eerie (2012) - Indie Rock
I get the sense that this record is considered a little unremarkable in the Mount Eerie catalog, not because it’s not good or well loved, but simply because there isn’t much to say about it. Clear Moon arrived after the self-transcendent coming of age arc of The Microphones and before Elverum’s focus turned toward grief in the later half of the 2010s. As such, this record just kinda exists and is content to do so. It depicts Elverum mostly doing the same, contemplating the beauty of the material world without relying on metaphysical notions of a higher reality whether in the form of mountains or websites. Despite it’s humble aims the record features a few new wrinkles to the Mount Eerie sound like 808 drum fills, autotune, and a more nuanced interpolation of black metal droning than the overt homage of Wind’s Poem. Maybe I’m just biased because this was my first Mount Eerie record but I think it’s underrated and well worth your time!
~*My Girlfriend*~ was lucky enough to witness this moment in person. She’s a Cubs fan.