Black Sabbath, Vol. 4 (1972)

Here's another one I picked up in the early college era of life. This album is the result of classic doom metal/stoner rock laced with an ample amount of cocaine. Is this a bad thing musically? Hardly. When I put on BSV4, it's a real treat to hear the band bounce back and forth between slow doomy classic Sabbath riffs and bouncy shuffling fast sections. Virtually every song on the album works off this formula, with the opener, "Wheels of Confusion", and the closer, "Under the Sun", working nearly the same method. While this isn't my favorite Black Sabbath album, it's a cool snapshot of a transitional phase in the band's history.

The running joke with Black Sabbath is that they were almost constant trying to run away from their image as the quintessential proto-doom band, and constantly being turned back to it by the rest of the world. The first two albums stuck a tone that would be much copied by others, yet shunned by the band itself. The first album is so eerie I get this mental image of a band recording an album around a single mic by candlelight. Many of the deeper cuts of Paranoid follow in this spirit, but it was clear by the third album they were tired of this image and the "dark blues" formula that put them on the map. The fourth album was their first attempt to break free of the stereotype, a precious two years after they effectively created it. Just about every track sneaks in keyboards somewhere, with an entire song ("Changes") being nothing but a piano, a mellotron and Ozzy. As mentioned previously, the "Sabbath Sound" is there, but interrupted often by a more jaunty sound based around a crashing repeating riff, with "Supernaut" being the epitome of this. "Supernaut" and "Snowblind" were unfettered odes to the joy (and dangers!) of drugs, with cocaine unseating marijuana as the medication of choice by this time. In fact, the label nixed the whole album being called "Snowblind" due to the obvious drug reference. The whispered "cocaine!" in the first verse didn't help matters and Ozzy pretty much confirmed this decision by shouting it at the top of his lungs during live performances.

The riff-based portions of the album would become even stronger on the following album, Sabbath Bloody Sabbath, followed by an abrupt change to songs featuring elaborate and lengthy solos on the sixth album, Sabotage. Sabotage was pretty much the last "classic" Black Sabbath album, though Ozzy would hang around for a another couple albums that almost fully rejected the sound they were known for. Attempts to drop the "Black" from the name failed around the time Ronnie James Dio joined the band, and Tony Iommi failed to jettison the entire name in 1986 with the release of Seventh Star. It was just too good a name for the powers that be to ever let go of, no matter how much the band tried to escape it. In 1995 it seemed that the world was about ready to put the band name to rest, but by 1998 the "reunion" era began, marked by frequent touring but little recording. Those in need of a Sabbath fix between Forbidden (1995) and 13 (2013) should check out the Tony Iommi solo albums (Iommi, the DEP Sessions, Fused), and Heaven and Hell (basically Mob Rules/Dehumanizer era Black Sabbath by another name). You could do worse than scope out an Ozzy album like Ozzmosis (1995), which features Geezer Butler on bass. Bill Ward's solo albums are lightweight, but honest. If you like super heavy Fear Factory type metal, Geezer's various solo albums are worthwhile, but probably too grating for those who find Metallica (1980's era) to mark their heaviness threshold.

To close, what about the new album, 13? It's all right, I suppose. Generally I will consider any album to feature both Tony and Geezer to be Black Sabbath, even if they don't use the name outright. I know this drives the Ozzy purists crazy, but come on. Until "13" finally appeared, the Black Sabbath "reunion" era is a wasteland when it comes to fresh recordings. They all owe Dio a debt a gratitude for bringing back a sense of professionalism to a band that was rapidly disintegrating into a nostalgia act.