Rod Stewart - Every Picture Tells A Story
Rod the Mod finds his solo footing, headed for stardom, with the Faces in his wake.
6:00 AM GMT 22/06/2011
Features Disc of the day
Black Sabbath
Vol. 4
(Vertigo, 1972)
Birmingham’s bludgeon-aires brave their self-inflicted LA blizzard.
Having released three albums in two years, all of which topped a million sales in the US, the four-piece of Ozzy Osbourne, guitarist Tony Iommi, bassist Geezer Butler and drummer Bill Ward relocated to Los Angeles where they rented a palatial villa in Bel Air. There, as well as turning their hand to the small matter of writing new material, the four-piece gave full reign to the irregular lifestyle they’d developed during the last 18 months on the album-tour-album hamster wheel by indulging in near-Olympian feats of excess.
"By the time we got to Bel Air we were totally gone," admitted Iommi, "It really was a case of wine, women and song, and we were doing more drugs than ever before."
“At the time we had a guy who travelled around with us with a suitcase of cocaine," adds Ozzy. "I'm sure most of it was Johnson's arse powder, mind you. Anyway, we were just taking stuff trying to pretend that we felt good."
Snowblind was one of the first tracks written by the band, who promptly informed the label that they wished to christen their fourth album after their drug of choice. When the record company baulked and changed the title to Vol. 4, Sabbath merely contented themselves with thanking “the great COKE-Cola company of Los Angeles” on the album sleeve and amplified Ozzy’s non-too-subtle whisper of the word “cocaine” on Snowblind to avoid any ambiguity as to the track’s subject matter.
Despite the band’s increasingly frayed state, musically Vol.4 is arguably Sabbath’s finest hour, showcasing both the band’s power as well as their oft-overlooked sonic subtlety. Opener Wheels Of Confusion/The Straightener remains one of their heaviest and most nihilistic moments (Osbourne finding himself “Lost in the wheels of confusion/Running through a valley of tears”), while conversely Iommi’s softly picked Laguna Sunrise provides a melodic reflection on their home-from-home and emerges as a quest for peace.
The slow-crawling Cornucopia, meanwhile, matches piledriving heaviness with bleak visions of insanity and self-confession (“I don’t what’s going on/I am all torn inside!” bellows Ozzy) while St Vitus Dance (despite its rheumatic title) veers towards country rock territory. The thunderous Supernaut is one of Sabbath’s most gargantuan and accomplished moments, built around a dextrous Iommi riff and underpinned by Bill Ward’s rhythmic breakdown – the latter matching fellow Black Country hero John Bonham in terms of might and versatility, and adding a soulful edge to the band’s patented crunch.
Most telling of all, however, is the piano-led ballad, Changes, charting the band’s own increasingly fractured state of mind and the realisation that what had started out as hi-jinx was tipping towards dependency and alienation.
"The album cost around $65,000 to make and we'd spent about $75,000 on coke,” reflects Geezer Butler. “We managed to wreck the house in Bel Air, with Ozzy having waterfights with hose pipes inside the house all the time. I didn't realise how nuts we'd gone in until I went home and the girl I was with at the time couldn't recognise me.”
A nihilistic chronicle, close to four decades on Vol. 4 remains timeless, cathartic and heavy – in more ways than one.
Phil Alexander
Posted by Danny_Eccleston at 6:00 AM GMT 23/01/2009
Further Listening
Deep Purple – In Rock (Harvest, 1970)
Black Sabbath – Master Of Reality (Vertigo, 1971)
Electric Wizard – Dopethrone (Rise Above, 2006)
Previous Disc of the day
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Earl Brutus - Larky
Last salvo of Ginsters Pasty-Warholism from Britpop ramraiders.
12:04 PM GMT 08/06/2011
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Loudon Wainwright - T-Shirt
An overlooked small wonder from an unpredictable career.
6:00 AM GMT 03/06/2011
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Landscape - From The Tea-rooms Of Mars… To The Hell-holes Of Uranus
Dry computer club Futurists, upon hitting implausible chart paydirt.
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Causa Sui - Summer Sessions Vol 1-3
Epic Danish jams, for when the neighbours get you down.
6:00 AM GMT 12/05/2011
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Bitching!
Posted by Frumious Bandersnatch at 3:44 PM GMT 26/01/2009 Report Abuse
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I love the most interaction this blog has had in the past 5 mntohs has been from the posting of a Black Sabbath video. Who knew heavy metal could evoke such emotion. That's it, tomorrow I am posting a bunch of Slayer vids!!
Posted by Vgm at 7:06 AM GMT 11/03/2012 Report Abuse
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I love the most interaction this blog has had in the past 5 mntohs has been from the posting of a Black Sabbath video. Who knew heavy metal could evoke such emotion. That's it, tomorrow I am posting a bunch of Slayer vids!!
Posted by Vgm at 7:06 AM GMT 11/03/2012 Report Abuse
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I love the most interaction this blog has had in the past 5 mntohs has been from the posting of a Black Sabbath video. Who knew heavy metal could evoke such emotion. That's it, tomorrow I am posting a bunch of Slayer vids!!
Posted by Vgm at 7:07 AM GMT 11/03/2012 Report Abuse
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