Fourth philosophical shift in four albums, establishing an obstinate lack of pattern that will continue to at least the end of the wild Ozzy years, Vol 4 offers more songs and wider reign, an ever so slightly brighter sound, and yet another form of recording so hopelessly torn open by the all-encompassing presence of Iommi's bank of amplifiers (guitar was too small a word). The cover of Vol 4 graced my very first rock T, and at its stark lurid nothingness, lies the heat of this record's delivery, a decidedly shaggy, overwhelmed scattering of vibrations dominated by Iommi but personified by Ward's bashing struggles against suffocation by guitar. Less driven by grooves than crashing cacophonies of cymbals and war drums, kidney-pounders like "Tomorrow's Dream," "Supernaut" and "Cornucopia" signaled a monster out of control, in essence, the band headbanging in the retina-detaching, stupid-making, suicidal form of the word. Thriving voraciously under a mountain of drugs by this point, the band was barreling along off-the-rails to the stunned soul-searching and uneasy delight of the throngs of listeners in its crooked path, Sabbath recording the record in an L.A. haze, an eternity from their home base both geographically and psychologically, no Roger Bain to guide the process, money slipping through their hands like dust off a butterfly's wings. Consequently, Vol 4 is the scrappiest, most wickedly bashing Sabbath of them all, considered a bit of a confused black hole by many fans, impermeable, not so willing to cough up hits. 10/10 -- M. PopoffAs the Sabs poured into "Wheels of Confusion" like giant gobs of wet cement gushing from the heavens in the never-ending sameness of a taffy-pull performed by mutants, people began pouring into my house. One by one they instantly began digging the Sabs, nodding, heavy dudes one and all. Everyone picked up that old Sab neck-wobble trip where your head sort of rocks back and forth on your neck python-fash, right? Where the organ comes in over the big slow power chords; no it's not an organ, call it a component, yah, straight out of the Middle fucking Ages! Sorta walks right on out. Like some giant prehistoric plant learning how to walk ... right over your house ... so boogie while you can. But you can't lose that dyno chthonic zoomout riff 'cos it's right there in the middle of the next song, "Tomorrow's Dream," which got us so zonked we felt absolutely heavy. The cat did too. Then on into a foxy sorta Carole King piano folk song or something, whew, "Changes," kind of David Bowie we guessed, hey orchestra right? What? Went its evil way? Ooh. The room got kind of deep and spacey, brown all over, and the notes then sounded sorta while coming out of that ... y'know? Like a snowfall? It went on forever. We could dig it. Like we dig chewing gum made out of caulking compound. Right? So then can you conceive of a piercing tone followed by reverberating percussion noises called "FX," huh, that was the next tune, then we got tight with some heavy familiar Sab vibes again, swimming right up there to deep space where nothing hears or talks, right? "Supernaut." My sister had a vision of electronic buffalo ranches on Uranus, so help me. The drum solo in this song did it to her. Also, my watch stopped. But the Sabs didn't. Who needs a watch? I ripped it off my wrist & stomped on it. Slowly. Crunch. Side one groaned to a close, but soon side two followed it, without delay adhering to the walls of one's septum — the total "icicles in my brain" riff — right — "Snowblind," no less — climbing those big staircases made out of vanilla fudge, right up into your mind — so feed your nose, hey? God's a Fuzz Tone, right? The Abominable Snowman? Hey. La Fucking Brea! The tar pits was a heavy scene, right? Ask Freud or Dave Crosby. What a streaming feast of nerve gobble anyhow! But on with the snow, I mean show. Time for a Pez break. Whew. Monster slowness of the unelusive strikes again: "Cornucopia." I about fell out. Ten-ton dogs snarled in the mouth of the volcano. Storms of liquid metal blasted their way into the soap factory. Soaring zoos, etc. Then on to babies' time; breakfast on a sleigh in Hawaii with violins, titled "Laguna Sunrise." All sweet lime stripes across a popsicle spiced with Quaaludes, right. A million artichokes can't be wrong. Dreaming in the sun with their eyes open? Sweet music must end. Grunting, we tumble on into the new dance craze, you guessed it, "St. Vitus Dance." You drive me nervous. Pieces of hair got into my mouth during this one. Same old power saw on Venus move, lovely. "Under the Sun" starts out slow, like dinosaurs yawning, then it speeds up a little. Or does it? I can't tell. Fantastic four-second guitar solo by a gorilla in there somewhere, right — beautiful — gorilla! The Sabs pour it on, man, it's right near the end of the record now and here's a great three-second drum solo by a polar bear, no shit! Put mud in my ears if I lie! I can dig it! Great buncha chords there too, I couldna chose better myself, whew, we're thudding down toward the ultimate rip chord now. Gotcha. Over and out. Molten rocks hurtling across space imitating the origin of the universe, you dig? Ah, lay those chord slabs on my grave ... whew. The Sabs are genius. -- Tom Clark, RS
Black Sabbath at their best have been perhaps the all-time ultimate rock and roll noise -- their music has relentlessly developed upon the idea the early Who were getting at, that mystical moment when the music takes off and just becomes pure sound. That, indeed is where Sabbath have made their basic stand: sound.
And that's where the one big dissapointment with Black Sabbath Vol. 4 lies -- the sound itself. For some inexplicable reason, Black Sabbath saw fit to record Vol. 4 without their previous production/engineering team of Rodger Bain and Tony Allom, a move that has to be one of the biggest mistakes in recent rock history.
As a result, Vol. 4 is the most conventional sounding of any Black Sabbath album to date, lacking entirely the furious slab-thick bass sound which reached its apex on Master of Reality. Large stretches of Vol. 4 sound a lot like Led Zeppelin, in fact -- which is great, but not Sabbath's main turf.
But the engineering deficiencies of the album are largely compensated for by a stunning new development: Black Sabbath playing at fast tempos! Around 5 of the 7 rockers on the LP feature Sabbath simply revving up a a pace previously unknown! The mind boggles. "Supernaut" is the real standout, one of Sabbath's two or three best tracks ever... to hear this song on AM radio would be the greatest thing since Uriah Heep's "Easy Livin.'" The remaining tracks are for the most part also very good, and "Cornucopia" is an effective slow workout more in the old Sabbath mold.
Black Sabbath's songwriting has changed a lot with Vol. 4. Musically, the group's material is more diffuse and less monomanically vicious -- fewer pulverizing riffs this time out. The music nevertheless still shines, but thematically the songs just don't stand out as they have in the past (who can ever forget "War Pigs," "Hand of Doom," or "Into the Void"? Whether, as one non-convert put it, you want to or not!).
So Black Sabbath Vol. 4 is both a confusing and an exciting album. Good but not great. In the long run Vol. 4 may be a more durable effort than Paranoid, but the two are so dissimilar I hesitate to ignore them. And it's still impossible to tell whether the comparative lack of fire here is due to inferior engineering, or to a decreasing savagery in Sabbath's playing. Considering how "Under the Sun" (the album's least successful hard rock number) is almost wiped off the board by thin recording, the former seems more probable at this point in time.
But Black Sabbath merely going through the motions still shuts down 99% of today's rock. -- Mike Saunders, Phonograph Record
Long before Black Sabbath broke down as a result of drug-fueled infighting, there was a brief period of drug-fueled sludge-metal genius. The proof -- ...Vol. 4.
The band have long said the writing and recording of the album coincided with their most hedonistic and substance-heavy period, after their label transplanted the four Brits to California to record the album. The record's original title, Snowblind, was nixed by label execs for its obvious reference to cocaine.
The negative consequences of their decadence would be heard at the end of the decade, when the band descended into Spinal Tap versions of their early selves. But ...Vol. 4 was before the burnout and bloat and the songs were still riff-packed, rough, and heavy -- or, as Rolling Stone put it, "slabs of liquid metal."
Because of the lack of an anthemic single, ...Vol. 4. is often overlooked. There is no track to rival the popularity of "Paranoid" and "Sweet Leaf"; only "Snowblind" gets the odd nod on radio these days. Rather, the album's strengths lie in the songs' confident, heavy crunch and in small touches of experimentation. The band dabble with psychedelic overdubs ("The Straightener"), live strings ("Laguna Sunrise"), and even a mellow side -- the slow piano ballad "Changes," which makes for an odd addition to this collection. But unlike the band's later albums, the meat of this record stays true to the band's original dark and heavy roots. It was with Sabbath Bloody Sabbath and all that followed that the Sabs' trademark sound began to slip away from them. -- Jason Chow, 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die
review
[-] by Steve HueyVol. 4 is the point in Black Sabbath's career where the band's legendary drug consumption really starts to make itself felt. And it isn't just in the lyrics, most of which are about the blurry line between reality and illusion. Vol. 4 has all the messiness of a heavy metal Exile on Main St., and if it lacks that album's overall diversity, it does find Sabbath at their most musically varied, pushing to experiment amidst the drug-addled murk. As a result, there are some puzzling choices made here (not least of which is the inclusion of "FX"), and the album often contradicts itself. Ozzy Osbourne's wail is becoming more powerful here, taking greater independence from Tony Iommi's guitar riffs, yet his vocals are processed into a nearly textural element on much of side two. Parts of Vol. 4 are as ultra-heavy as Master of Reality, yet the band also takes its most blatant shots at accessibility to date -- and then undercuts that very intent. The effectively concise "Tomorrow's Dream" has a chorus that could almost be called radio-ready, were it not for the fact that it only appears once in the entire song. "St. Vitus Dance" is surprisingly upbeat, yet the distant-sounding vocals don't really register. The notorious piano-and-Mellotron ballad "Changes" ultimately fails not because of its change-of-pace mood, but more for a raft of the most horrendously clichéd rhymes this side of "moon-June." Even the crushing "Supernaut" -- perhaps the heaviest single track in the Sabbath catalog -- sticks a funky, almost danceable acoustic breakdown smack in the middle. Besides "Supernaut," the core of Vol. 4 lies in the midtempo cocaine ode "Snowblind," which was originally slated to be the album's title track until the record company got cold feet, and the multi-sectioned prog-leaning opener, "Wheels of Confusion." The latter is one of Iommi's most complex and impressive compositions, varying not only riffs but textures throughout its eight minutes. Many doom and stoner metal aficionados prize the second side of the album, where Osbourne's vocals gradually fade further and further away into the murk, and Iommi's guitar assumes center stage. The underrated "Cornucopia" strikes a better balance of those elements, but by the time "Under the Sun" closes the album, the lyrics are mostly lost under a mountain of memorable, contrasting riffery. Add all of this up, and Vol. 4 is a less cohesive effort than its two immediate predecessors, but is all the more fascinating for it. Die-hard fans sick of the standards come here next, and some end up counting this as their favorite Sabbath record for its eccentricities and for its embodiment of the band's excesses.