NEW LP
New sealed copy. 2016 remastered reissue on 180 gram vinyl.
Vol. 4 is the fourth studio album by English rock band Black Sabbath. It was the first album by Black Sabbath not produced by Rodger Bain; guitarist Tony Iommi assumed production duties.
The album was released in September 1972, and while most critics of the era were dismissive of the record, it achieved gold status in less than a month, and was the band's fourth consecutive release to sell one million copies in the United States.bIt reached number 13 on Billboard's pop album chartband number 8 on the UK Albums Chart. The song "Tomorrow's Dream" was released as a single but failed to chart. Following an extensive tour of the United States, the band toured Australia for the first time in 1973, and later Europe.
Rock critic Lester Bangs, who had derided the band's earlier albums, applauded Vol. 4, writing in Creem, "We have seen the Stooges take on the night ferociously and go tumbling into the maw, and Alice Cooper is currently exploiting it for all it's worth, turning it into a circus. But there's only one band that's dealt with it honestly on terms meaningful to vast portions of the audience, not only grappling with it in a mythic structure that's both personal and powerful but actually managing to prosper as well. And that band is Black Sabbath." Bangs also compared the band's lyrics to those of Bob Dylan and William S. Burroughs. In June 2000, Q placed Vol. 4 at number 60 in its list of The 100 Greatest British Albums Ever and described the album as "the sound of drug-taking, beer-guzzling hooligans from Britain's oft-pilloried cultural armpit let loose in LA." In his 2013 biography on the band Black Sabbath: Symptom of the Universe, Mick Wall insists "Under the Sun" would become the "sonic signpost" for bands that would follow Sabbath in years to come, such as Iron Maiden and Metallica. Frank Zappa has identified "Supernaut" as one of his all-time favorites. (In a 1994 interview with Guitar for the Practicing Musician, Butler revealed, "I loved Zappa's lyric approach. That influenced me lyrically, definitely.") "Supernaut" was also one of Led Zeppelin drummer John Bonham's favorite songs.
Kerrang! magazine listed the album at No. 48 among the "100 Greatest Heavy Metal Albums of All Time". Rolling Stone ranked it 14th on their 2017 list of "100 Greatest Metal Albums of All Time". The album was also included in the book 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die.
TRACKLIST:
A1 Wheels Of Confusion
A2 Tomorrow's Dream
A3 Changes
A4 FX
A5 Supernaut
B1 Snowblind
B2 Cornucopia
B3 Laguna Sunrise
B4 St. Vitus' Dance
B5 Under The Sun
