It doesn't sound like Ozzy Osbourne is a fan of Black Sabbath's last record.
In an interview with Stereogum, Ozzy was asked whether he felt "good" about where Sabbath's final album, 2013's 13, "left things." His response? "Not really."
"To be perfectly honest, I didn't really get a charge from the album," Ozzy shares.
"Although [producer] Rick Rubin is a good friend of mine, I wasn't really…I was just singing," the Prince of Darkness adds. "It was like stepping back in time, but it wasn’t a glorious period. Though [bassist] Geezer [Butler] did a lot of lyric writing for me, which he's very, very good at. It wasn't an earth-shattering experience for me."
While 13 marked the first Sabbath album to feature Ozzy since 1978's Never Say Die!, it wasn't a complete reunion. Original drummer Bill Ward did not take part, which Ozzy says he now "regret[s]."
"It wasn't really a Black Sabbath album," Ozzy says. "I'm not saying that one day we might not all go in a room and come up with the perfect Black Sabbath album. But I'll say, [13] wasn't recorded the way Black Sabbath recorded records."
"We'd gone right back past the point where we took charge, back to when someone else had full control of our recording," he adds. "Which we never did from [1972's] Vol. 4 onwards."
Black Sabbath played their final show in 2017, and though he and guitarist Tony Iommi recently reunited for a brief performance over the summer, Ozzy feels that the band remains "completely done."
"I think it's time," he says.
Ozzy, meanwhile, just released his new solo album, Patient Number 9.