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Album Review: Zakk Wylde's Black Label Society - Catacombs Of The Black Vatican

Carley Hall

"Softie Angel Of Mercy just lets things slide a tad as the token acoustic."




After a steady output about a decade ago with almost an album released every year, four years since 2010's Order Of The Black seems in relative terms a fairly long wait. Here Wylde again brings his impassioned energy into the group's ninth release. Opener Fields Of Unforgiveness frames the album in familiar territory – low plane guitar chugs, whiskey-stained vocals, unhurried riffs – and this good form continues into Heart Of Darkness and the ripping Damn The Flood. Softie Angel Of Mercy just lets things slide a tad as the token acoustic.