to Hell

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Grammy-winning hard rock journeyman Zakk Wylde and his band Black Label Society have never been bigger. BLS album and merchandise sales have steadily climbed over the course of seven albums, with the latest BLS release Mafia the strongest selling release of their career, yielding a Top 20 Active Rock track ("Suicide Messiah"), a Top 25 single ("In This River") and a Top 30 single ("Fire It Up"). Zakk's star continues to rise, with movie, television and even cartoon appearances, sporting event performances, and all the while the ubiquitous BLS insignia is seen everywhere at rock shows nationwide. Zakk and BLS are ready to explode. Enter Roadrunner Records, and the launch of the upcoming studio album To Hell. Produced by Zakk, Executive-Produced by Michael Beinhorn (Soundgarden, Red Hot Chili Peppers), and mixed by Randy Staub (Metallica, HIM), To Hell is their latest, most accessible release to date while still offering the trademark BLS sound fans are rabidly awaiting. .com ---- Make no mistake, Zakk Wylde remains one of the most invigorating guitar players in rock & roll today. On to Hell, he continues his fascination with the Alice in Chains-esque grunge that he and the rest of BLS whipped up for 2005's Mafia. As convincing as Wylde's riffing can be on tunes such as "Concrete Jungle," "Blacked Out World" (a track that imagines a darker version of Aerosmith's "Sweet Emotion"), and "Faith Is Blind," you can't help but get the feeling you've heard this before--whether on previous Black Label outings or on the records that Wylde has made with Ozzy Osbourne. The slow-build ballad "New Religion" and its stylistic cousin " of It All" suggest that Wylde may be wise to put a little more distance between albums and try to focus on making the all-killer, no-filler album he so clearly has inside of him. --Jedd Beaudoin