Ozzy Osbourne's recent boxed set, "Prince of Darkness," features a retrospective of his foray into the worlds of collaborations and cover versions.

Some of them work very well. Pairing with the eminently talent members of Primus, Ozzy does a great take on a favorite of his old band, Black Sabbath's "N.I.B." And resurrecting Status Quo's uber-psychedelic "Pictures of Matchstic Men" as a creeping, menacing collaboration with Type O Negative works to great effect. (Joining forces with the likes of Kim Basinger and Miss Piggy, as you might guess, doesn't work as well.)

Among the covers on "Prince of Darkness" Ozzy does with a consistent core of backing musicians, a nice surprise is "Fire," another relic of the British (Psychedelic) Invasion from '68. Old-timers, or folks who have read Richie Unterberger's exceptional "Urban Spacemen and Wayfaring Strangers, will remember "Fire" as the one-hit-wonder offering of the Crazy World of Arthur Brown, and that Arthur would perform it while wearing a helmet of - you guessed it - fire.

Musically, the song is mostly an energized two-chord riff, ably played on the original by keyboardist Vincent Crane (1943-89), later the driving force of Atomic Rooster. The sound quality of the Crazy World's only album wasn't so hot, so it's a pleasure to hear a sonically advanced version emerge.

Also, any time someone wants to tackle King Crimson's "21st Century Schizoid Man," please go for it!