VOLUME FOUR

Black Sabbath is no progressive act. The time of being or "zeitgeist" however had its influences on all artists and therefor all artists in the early 70's, including early metal bands like Sabbath, Budgie and Blue Oyster Cult were influenced by the artistic flow of the time which had lead to the succes of the progressive scene. Metal had no standards yet, and therefor it was possible to come up with a piano + keyboard ballad like "changes" without being bashed from the metal community. Also a song like FX which is nothing else then spacy effects could only happen in this time period. Although these songs are not the best songs of the record and are certainly not the songs that made Black Sabbath so succesful, this is the reason why Black Sabath is appreciated within the progressive community, although not hailed like in the metal scene.

Wheels of Confusion and Snowblind are amongst others good examples of the growing metal hit collection of Black Sabbath. These songs have some artistic edges, but are basically just fine songs based on metal riffs with some nice bridges. No song reaches out as fine as War Pigs, but I can appreciate this record more than the Masters of Reality. Not essential or noteworthy, but steady and pleasant. I cannot find any great weak spots on this record, except there is litle new going on. This record is advised for fans of Paranoid, which should be tried first.