Black Sabbath “Vol. 4”

Why I never had this album, which came out in 1972, in my adolescent record collection, is beyond me, since I had “Master of Reality” from the year before and I loved that one—particularly the song “Sweet Leaf.” Even as a lad, I thought it was both funny and awesome, simultaneously, though I’m sure I didn’t use the word “awesome” at that time. I probably thought it was “bad”— which in 1971 meant awesome.

So I’ve never put this one on a turntable until now, and it’s pretty satisfying. The first song, “Wheels of Confusion” starts out with some guitar excess that sounds just like Pink Floyd, and you have to wonder if it was a joke. Pink FLOYD… Black SABBATH—get it? Then it goes right into that super heavy, super slow, simple guitar heavy metal that I love so much, and it’s like eight minutes long, too! The next song, “Tomorrow’s Dream”—if you were ever going to put a heavy metal song into a time capsule and send it out into space—to represent “Heavy Metal”—this would be the song. “Changes” kind of brings me down, even though it’s so obviously pretty and an allowable step in a different direction. “Supernaut” brings you back to where your heavy metal brain wants to be—insane!

Side two is much of the same, with Ozzy working the brain/insane rhyme which he had been, was, and would continue to make a career out of. Actually, I don’t know how many times he or anyone else used that rhyme, and I’m sure not going to pursue it! There are some pretty obvious drug references—a clue: if someone in rock music mentions “snow” it has nothing to do with weather. Everybody back then wrote about drugs a lot… you’d think they were IN LOVE with drugs! Try to find someone from 1972 who WASN’T writing songs about drugs—that is the real challenge.

The cover is a classic high contrast photo of Ozzy that’s as boring as it is iconic. The inside cover is nicer, with, apparently large color photo pages of the band—most of which are missing in this tattered copy—though there is a good picture of Tony Iommi, who was one of the more cool looking guys in rock from that time, in my opinion. The band wishes to thank, in the credits, “COKE-Cola”—apparently they were the first ones ever to make that Coca-cola/cocaine connection, and for that we owe them a great debt.