Wooooahhhh!! The record I got as a (moderatley) unsuspecting 14 year-old which was to make me Mr Unpopular through
my last years of school. This was incredible stuff. I’d first got into to Sabbath in 1982 as a 12 year old who’d
found Paranoid in a bargain bin and the mother of one of my friends who lent me the original Black Sabbath (which
I did return — some years later). I remember sneaking off to my Sister’s bedroom to play it on her fabulous Mono.
I’d heard tales of Ozzy dismembering creatures and devil worship, so in expectation of bilious cacaphony, I was
keeping the volume down so as not to upset my mother. Who unlike my friend’s Mother had not been enlightened
enough in 1970 to be buying Sabbath originals. Imagine my shock as War Pigs started up. He can actually sing, wow,
and in tune, amazing. But I digress.

Volume 4 is that classic album, that every band has in them and they know that once completed it’s all down hill
from here. This is the pinnacle of Sabbath’s achievement and its afterglow continued through Sabbath Bloody
Sabbath and Sabotage, but was never quite matched. 

Snowblind and Tomorrow’s Dream are classic Sabbath. This is thumping metal, with all the instruments (and Ozzy)
competing to be louder than each other. Of course with Iommi producing, he was able to drown out everything as and
when he felt like it with his blistering staccato solos. 

We then have the grunge tracks: Cornucopia, St.Vitus Dance and Under the Sun. These show us the power of tuning
down 3 semitones with Geezer Butler almost ripping the strings off his bass to smother us in the most wonderful,
earthy almost primal calls to the gods that had ever been committed to vinyl at that time. Ozzy’s mix of colourful
and bizzare vocals (‘Frozen food in a country place’ — from Cornucopia; ‘You think she wants your money but it’s
you she wants instead’ — St. Vitus Dance)

The epic Wheels of Confusion is the one that leaves us in no doubt that we are dealing with an exceptional record.
The intro, outro, reprise value of this song will encapsulate and transport you. You have now felt this album and
you know it’s great.

In the context of such a powerful album, we can see even the tracks which we consider awful are capable of
spawning genres. I’m talking of course of Changes, the rock-ballad template. Complete with crass lyrics and a
wailing, whinging Ozzy. This unwittingly opened the flood gates of soft metal ballads and created a genre that
still nauseates today. 

After the anomaly comes the climax. This starts with the echoey FX — no doubt the result of some in studio
substance abuse. The album is dedicated to the great Coke Cola company of Los Angeles after all. Nothing , of
course can prepare us for Supernaut. This is the sum total of everything Sabbath tried to achieve. This will have
you running round the room in shamanic frenzy, whilst reminding you of the beauty of salsa. The whooping bass line on this song will lasoo you in for a roller-coaster ride to the brink, and then some! ‘I’ve lived a thousand times and it never bothered me’, just about says it all.