"Mr Crowley" - TELLERS SCRIBE Add Gothic Touch To Metal Classic

Dickensian storytellers... TELLERS SCRIBE [photo: Tellers Scribe]

There aren't many bands brave enough to take on a classic. However, Hertfordshire's TELLERS SCRIBE are one of those bands. Still relatively new, appearing on people's radars only last year with their debut album (aptly titled 'Volume One'), the band are taking big swings early on with their latest offering: a cover of none other than Ozzy Osbourne's "Mr Crowley".

It's a perfect match - a band known for their Dickensian aesthetic covering a song about a famed British occultist. The end result is a love letter to a metal classic, whilst also standing strong on its own merits.

Starting with a slow, clean guitar, a sense of atmosphere is quickly built. Light orchestration in the background swells, and the gothic sound the band presented in their debut album shines through again here.

The instrumentation quickly switches to heavy distortion, and the classic metal sound is front and centre. The band are tight and hard-hitting, with punching drums keeping the rhythm.

The vocals are resonant and powerful, adding depth and a personal stamp to the track. It might not sound like Ozzy, but it was never going to, and vocalist Kim has embraced that.

Of course, a standout part of any Ozzy track is the guitar work. Here, the guitar solos are authentic, paying homage to the virtuosic playing style of the late Randy Rhoads. The tone is suitably distorted, pushing through and scratching the brain in all the right ways. It's sure to please fans of the original, and 80s metal as a whole. It's clear that great effort has been put in to replicate and deliver a memorable part of the original.

It's been just over a year since Tellers Scribe made themselves known to the world; whilst this might not hit quite as hard as their original songs, this is a great cover to keep listeners engaged until new tales are told.

Video for "Mr Crowley" [cred. Tellers Scribe]

"Mr Crowley" is out NOW