I'll be brutally honest, here. I was giddy when I received this CD about a year ago. I kept hearing such good things about this CD. Myself being somewhat of semi-Ozzy Osbourne fan in my high school days, I was expecting much from this (the ads were sporting this as the "Christian Black Sabbath and Ozzy").
On the plus side, it is, very much, almost an uncanny carbon-copy of the Oz-meister. Vocal-wise, anyway. Instrumentation-wise, well, it leaves something to be desired. Yes, on tunes like "Holy Psychotherapy", "America Wake Up" and "Harlot's Harvest", there's definitely some cool riffs maintained on guitar, but it's just not as blistering as, say, I remember on classic Ozzy albums. Don't get me wrong, it's good, but it has such a potential of being great.
The lyrics, on the other hand. . .well, what can I say? David Benson is extremely blatant about his message. So much so that he almost makes Mortification lyrics seem like obscure symbolism. Take the title cut: "Holy Psychotherapy, redemption of your soul / Holy Psychotherapy, let Jesus make you whole / Holy Psychotherapy, bibulous state no longer has control". Maybe it's my passion for heavy-metal praise-type songs, but "One More Chance" is one of my favorites: "One more chance to change my life / I got caught up in all the strife / One more chance to follow through / One more chance to follow You". There's definitely no denying Who he's singing about on this CD.
Final analysis: David Benson's Holy Psychotherapy would appeal to those into early Black Sabbath, when they were fronted by Ozzy Osbourne. My only other gripe, though, is the length, less than half an hour of air guitaring.
Oh, well. Hope to see more in the future. . .
5/10
Other coverage for this album
Heaven's Metal #52Reviewed by Doug Van PeltAs a music critic, one has to bring up the "originality issue" while reviewing this disc. Does the Christian music scene need a "sanctified Ozzy?" Do we need another copycat "Christian version" of someone else? Obvious answers aside, most of us will want to own a copy of this for novelty reasons. We can play if for our friends and say, "Hey, check out the new Ozzy album." "America Wake Up" is a…Heaven's Metal #43Reviewed by Jeff LottCan anyone say Ozzy Osbourne? I could have sworn that, somehow, Ozzy got on this tape by accident. On this advance copy the tape doesn't specify who sings or who plays what, but it is quite evident that Ozzy has played an influence here--in particular, the vocals. This is a very good tape. Looking over David's bio-sheet, I wonder how he even got to where he is today. It's obvious now though, that…Similar sounding releases
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