VOLUME FOUR

The fourth studio album from heavy metal legends Black Sabbath is entitled Vol.4. It was released in 1972 and made Black Sabbath even more famous than they already were. At this time every time Black Sabbath made a new album their fanbase grew considerably. Vol.4 follows the concept of the previous albums. Not much has changed even though Black Sabbath for the first time tries to make a ballad ( I don´t consider either Planet Caravan nor Solitude to be regular ballads. They are more stoned psychadelic songs).

The music is power chord riff based doomy heavy metal. It´s very simple but very powerful.

The album starts with Wheels of Confusion which is an eight minutes long doomy song. It´s very melodic and has some great soloing from Tony Iommi. Tomorrow's Dream is up next and it´s a favorite of mine on Vol. 4. Nice heavy tune. Then comes Black Sabbath´s attempt at making a ballad. Changes is definitely the lowpoint of this album. It´s simply a horrible song with piano. FX is just a short transition song. Then comes Supernaut, Snowblind and Cornucopia which are all great heavy metal songs. Laguna Sunrise is an acoustic guitar piece from Tony Iommi while St. Vitus Dance is another short and not that exciting song. Under the Sun ends the album in grand fashion. Great doomy track IMO.

The musicianship still relies much on feeling and touch and not so much on great techniques. The playing does seem a bit sloppy at times, but it suits the style perfectly.

The production is much better than the disaster of a production that was on Master of Reality.

I will always prefer the two first Black Sabbath albums but this one like Master of Reality and Sabbath Bloody Sabbath comes close behind. So allthough this is not my favorite Black Sabbath album it still deserves 4 stars and this is a highly recommendable album even though it has nothing to do with prog rock/ metal IMO. For the time it was very innovative though and that´s probably why it is listed here at Prog Archives. Well I´m glad it is as I have just had the pleasure of listening to it again. It´s not so often Black Sabbath´s albums come out of the shelf anymore but when they do it´s always a great pleasure for me. Simple but powerful music is not always my cup of tea, but in the case of Black Sabbath they just seem to have that extra dimension that makes their music great.