FOZZY OSBOURNE

The most interesting headline to come across my RSS reader this morning was this one from SMNnews.com: “Fozzy Song ‘Martyr No More’ Streaming.” Fozzy is still around? Fozzy of wrestler Chris Jericho fame? No shit.

A side project for Stuck Mojo guitarist Rich Ward at best and a musical outlet for Jericho at worst, apparently Fozzy have a new album coming out called Chasing the Grail. I’m not sure I’d ever listened to a Fozzy song before today, but you know what? “Martyr No More” ain’t bad at all for what it is. Rich Ward is a great songwriter and a surprisingly tasty guitar player, and though his sound hasn’t changed much, or really at all in 20 years, you have to give the guy credit for being several years ahead of the rap-metal curve (for better or worse). Take latter-day Stuck Mojo and remove some of the cringe-worthy rapping (not for nothin’ I’ve actually dug some of Mojo’s later material) and you’ve got Fozzy, which is actually kind of an upgrade. If you can just ignore all the auto-tune on Jericho’s voice, you’ve actually got a pretty decent song here. Certainly not gonna reinvent the wheel, but a good song.

-VN