Ain’t No Sunshine When Zakk Wylde’s Gone

Well, the good news is, Zakk Wylde’s Black Label Society have released what must be their best single in years… and the bad news is, it’s a cover. Specifically, of Bill Withers’ classic “Ain’t No Sunshine.”

And even though, generally speaking, I think it’s pretty good — it is also, needless to say, not as good as the original. There’s a section about a minute in where, for reasons not currently clear to me, Wylde has chosen to repeat the phrase “she’s gone away” like a trillion times, and it sounds like a broken record. I honestly thought the streaming player was broken for a second, until I saw the time code advancing and realized, no, this was another poor decision made by the artist formerly known as Jeffrey Wielandt. This dude is truly his own worst enemy.

ANYWAY, you can check it out below. The cover will appear on BLS’ upcoming live album, Unblackened, which comes out September 24 on eOne.