Black Label Society

Patience, goons: it's gonna take a while to wrap your metal-plated noggin around Hangover Music Vol. VI. A vast departure for BLS leader Zakk Wylde, it lacks the crushing distorted guitars and detuned riffing you've come to know and love. Instead, feast your ears on a borderline acoustic album that features looming, downtrodden songs. Yes, it's a mellow album. However, it's still imposing — not because of Wylde's typical biker-with-an-attitude image, but more for its serious emotional outpour. This album is so far removed from what you would expect, that you WANT to hate it, but as it plays out, you realize that it's great, dammit! The tracks have this theatricality to them that you'd expect to hear it in some post-death Broadway musical scene. Or, to make it close enough to home, imagine this as Wylde's even more-depressed, rootsier "So Tired."