50th Anniversary: Black Sabbath Vol 4
The cover art of Black Sabbath's Vol 4. Photo by Amazon
On Sep. 25, 1972, Black Sabbath released their album, Vol. 4, and fans are celebrating its 50th anniversary. This is truly a monumental album, especially for the genre of rock and metal. Vol. 4 follows three groundbreaking albums from Black Sabbath: their self-titled debut, Black Sabbath, released in 1970, an astonishing first album that is widely considered one of the greatest album debuts ever and is up there with the debuts of Led Zeppelin and The Doors just a few years before. Later that year, Black Sabbath released Paranoid, which is regarded as one of the most important albums ever released. It cemented the foundations of the metal genre and influenced countless bands. The next year Black Sabbath followed Paranoid with Master of Reality, which continued the band’s streak of fantastic albums.
In 1972, Vol. 4 was met with negative reception, although Black Sabbath maintained the commercial success of their previous releases. However, Vol. 4 received retrospective critical acclaim. I personally believe Vol. 4, although praised by critics to this day and beloved by music fans, is criminally underrated when discussed not only with the band’s discography but within the best albums of the 1970s.
Vol. 4 features some of the best work by the members of the band: Ozzy Osbourne's vocal work is some of the best of his career, while Tony Iommi on guitar is flawless and delivers hard-hitting riffs. However, two members that I believe are never given enough credit are Bill Ward on drums and Geezer Butler on bass who make up one of the greatest rhythm sections in a rock band, worthy of being held in the same regard as Jones and Bonham of Led Zeppelin. The production and mixing of the album are also great, and never lose the weighty sound of the album.
However, the thing that truly matters in a great album is a uniform sound throughout that connects all of the tracks together, along with excellent songs. Vol. 4 offers some of the best and most underrated tracks of Black Sabbath’s discography. No song from Vol. 4 reached the popularity of songs such as “Iron Man,” “Paranoid” or “Sweet Leaf” from their previous albums. However, Vol. 4 features some of my favorite songs from the band such as “Supernaut,” which features some of the best instrumental work from the band in my opinion, and the main guitar riff by Iommi is one of the most powerful in the history of metal.
“Snowblind” might be the best song on the album overall, and has my favorite writing of Vol. 4. “Snowblind” features some truly beautiful lyrics around drug addiction, which at the time may have intended to flaunt its use of cocaine and other drugs, but now the song is extremely somber and melancholic. The members of Black Sabbath described their drug usage at this point as a dangerous level, especially Osbourne. The overall sorrowful tone throughout the album permeates as loss, reality, death and addiction, which are fundamental to the lyrical and thematic components of the album. Black Sabbath’s albums up to this point undoubtedly had a somber tone, but this album feels more personal than their other works.
Vol. 4 is the type of music that can never be reconstructed in our time. It is stuck in the 1970s and the power, mass and fury behind these songs are truly special. Black Sabbath is a band with a unique sound that few can recreate, which earns them widespread acclaim and respect to this day. Vol. 4 is an essential listen for music fans and a great starting point for people trying to get into other genres such as rock or metal, or looking for a classic album to listen to.