Black Sabbath: Vol. 4 (1972)

I will resist Discog's pressure to refer to the album title as Black Sabbath Vol. 4. How stupid is that? Clearly, the LP is entitled Vol. 4. It's the band's fourth record; hence, the title.But, it's listed on Discogs as: Black Sabbath - Black Sabbath Vol. 4. Dumb.

This is a good record, though perhaps not quite as good as the first three LPs.Once again, critics were confounded:

Vol. 4 was released in September 1972, and while most critics of the era were dismissive of the album, 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. [source]

We should never listen to critics. But, some critics got it:

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. [source]

Yay, Lester.

My copy is a Canadian repressing from an unknown date, likely form the 1980s.