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Posted on October 22nd 2026, 3:41pm

Metal Breakdown Daily is one page, every weekday: the episode on the player below and the three stories in print, so you can listen, read, or both. Today it leads with Sharon Osbourne on Ozzy’s doctors: before Back To The Beginning, they told the family the show “would kill him,” Ozzy answered “I know I’m dying. If I miss a few months of my life, I want to go this way,” and Sharon never told Black Sabbath or her own children how sick he was.

Then Godsmack, where Sully Erna has confirmed new music in 2027 three years after calling Lighting Up The Sky the band’s last album, with a Dream Theater drummer now in the lineup. And Obituary, who are bringing Xecutioner’s Return and Darkest Day back into print, remastered, with a tribute to the two late bandmates who played on them.

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Scott Penfold opens today’s Metal Breakdown Daily with Sharon Osbourne’s account of the decision she made alone, then Sully Erna’s “I owe another record” and the Obituary reissues, and takes a side on whether Sharon was right not to tell Sabbath. Download the free Loaded Radio App on Apple iOS and Google Play and stream the show now.

Sharon Osbourne: Doctors Said Back To The Beginning Would Kill Ozzy

Sharon Osbourne told Rolling Stone that Ozzy’s doctors in England advised against the July 5, 2025 Villa Park farewell show, saying “it would kill him,” and that Ozzy overruled them: “I know I’m dying. If I miss a few months of my life, I want to go this way. This is what I want.”

“They advised us not to do the show,” Sharon said. “They said it would kill him.” Ozzy’s response: “It’s not an option. It’s what I want.” Sharon: “It was his wishes and we went through with it.” He sang at Villa Park from his throne on July 5, closing with the songs that defined his solo career, and died on July 22, seventeen days later.

At a London screening of the concert film on October 20, in a Q&A with Phil Alexander, she went further. “The guys didn’t know how sick Ozzy was,” she said of Tony Iommi, Geezer Butler and Bill Ward. “I mean, even my kids. We never told my kids. So nobody knew how sick he was.” Ozzy, she said, went into the show “just praying that his lungs would work and that he could sing.”

What followed, by her account, was the happiest he’d been in years. “He was so happy. Until the day he passed, he was still on that high. It was just joyous for us to see him that way, because we hadn’t seen him that way in years.” Ozzy & Black Sabbath: Back To The Beginning opens in theaters worldwide on October 28. Whether Sharon was right to carry that alone is The Take.

Godsmack Are Making Another Record After All

Sully Erna confirmed on The Mistress Carrie Podcast that new Godsmack music “is gonna happen at some point next year,” reversing his 2023 statement that Lighting Up The Sky would be the band’s final album, and explained it bluntly: “I’m under contract, and I owe another record anyways.”

The 2023 message, Erna now says, was misread. “I think there was a misunderstanding from the beginning.” What he meant was that it was “probably the last time you’re ever gonna hear anything new from the original lineup,” and that lineup no longer exists. Drummer Shannon Larkin and guitarist Tony Rombola retired from touring at the end of 2024. Sam Koltun took the guitar chair.

Wade Murff played a dozen-plus shows on drums from Welcome To Rockville in May to Houston on May 30, then left abruptly; Mike Mangini, thirteen years in Dream Theater, made his debut on June 12 in Riverside, Missouri. “We needed him,” Erna said, “because it’s so hard to replace someone like Shannon.” Robbie Merrill remains on bass.

Beyond the contract, Erna is curious. “I wanna do a record with these guys, ’cause I’m curious to see where it goes.” He also acknowledged the risk in his own words: change the dynamics in a band and “the whole sound can change drastically.” No title, format, label detail or date beyond 2027 was given.

“I owe a record” is the least romantic reason any band has offered for making one, and the most honest thing Godsmack have said in a while. The variable worth watching is Mangini: a Dream Theater drummer on a Godsmack record either changes nothing, because Erna writes everything, or changes a great deal, because for the first time he has a player who might push back on an arrangement.

Obituary Reissue Xecutioner’s Return And Darkest Day

Obituary’s Xecutioner’s Return (2007) and Darkest Day (2009) are being reissued, newly remastered, through Relapse Records on LP, double LP, CD, cassette and digital; the digital versions are out now and physical editions arrive in December.

Both albums were originally released on Candlelight and have been out of print for years. Darkest Day adds two bonus tracks from the Left To Die EP: the 2008 re-recording of “Slowly We Rot” and a cover of Celtic Frost’s “Dethroned Emperor.” These are the records from the lineup with Frank Watkins on bass and Ralph Santolla on lead guitar, and the band’s statement is as much about them as the music. Obituary say they’re “super excited” to have the albums available again, single out Santolla’s solos from his time in the band, and close with a tribute to “both our brothers.” Watkins died in October 2015; Santolla in June 2018.

It caps a strange, good year for one of the founding bands of Florida death metal: a New York show with Acid Bath and Thou, their own summer headline run, and in September a last-minute slot replacing a dropped act on the Turnstile tour, which put a band formed in 1984 in front of the biggest hardcore audience in America. John Tardy is 58 and sounds exactly as he did on Slowly We Rot. If you know Obituary only from the first three albums, Xecutioner’s Return is the one to buy: the best record of their second act, and Santolla is the reason. Pre-orders are at relapse.com.

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The Take: Sharon Osbourne Was Right Not To Tell Them

A dying man chose how to spend the end, and the person who loved him longest made sure nobody could take the choice away. That is not a cover-up; it’s the hardest kind of love there is.

“If I miss a few months of my life, I want to go this way.” That sentence is not a decision anyone else gets a vote on. Not the doctors, not the band, not the children, not the audience. Ozzy Osbourne spent most of his adult life being managed, medicated, scheduled and protected, a great deal of it by Sharon. Back To The Beginning was the one decision that was entirely his, and she let him have it.

The counter-argument is serious and it’s the band. Iommi, Butler and Ward stood on a stage for a show that could have killed their friend in front of forty-odd thousand people, and they didn’t know. They can argue they had a right to; so can the kids. Had Ozzy died at Villa Park, Sharon would have been the one who knew, and this week’s coverage would read very differently.

But consider what telling them would have done. Tony Iommi learns the show might kill Ozzy and either plays anyway, carrying that, or refuses and takes from Ozzy the thing he asked for.

Sharon didn’t keep the secret to protect herself. She kept it so the people Ozzy loved could stand beside him without it in their heads, and so that if it went wrong, only she would have to live with having known. She says he was happy until the day he died. That’s the outcome. The rest is what it cost her. The unreleased songs Andrew Watt says they made together suggest Ozzy was still planning, right up to the end, which is its own answer to the question of whether he wanted to be protected from it.

TL;DR

• Sharon Osbourne says Ozzy’s doctors warned that Back To The Beginning “would kill him”; Ozzy insisted (“I know I’m dying… I want to go this way”), and Sharon told neither Black Sabbath nor her children how sick he was. Ozzy died seventeen days after the show. The film opens worldwide October 28.
• Sully Erna confirmed new Godsmack music in 2027, reversing his 2023 “last album” statement: “I’m under contract, and I owe another record anyways.” The lineup is now Erna, Robbie Merrill, Sam Koltun and former Dream Theater drummer Mike Mangini.
• Obituary’s Xecutioner’s Return (2007) and Darkest Day (2009) are reissued, remastered, via Relapse: digital now, physical in December, with two Left To Die bonus tracks on Darkest Day and a tribute to the late Frank Watkins and Ralph Santolla.
• The Take: Sharon was right. The choice was Ozzy’s, and keeping it from the band spared them a burden rather than hiding one from them.

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Metal Breakdown Daily is Loaded Radio’s weekday hard rock and metal news show: three stories, one opinion, a new episode every weekday on the free Loaded Radio app for Apple iOS and Google Play. Follow Loaded Radio for the full stories behind every episode.

The post Metal Breakdown Daily: Sharon Osbourne Says She Never Told Black Sabbath Final Show Could Kill Ozzy, Godsmack Are Making Another Record After All, And Obituary Bring Back Two Lost Albums appeared first on Loaded Radio.

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