SABBATH BLOODY SABBATH BY BLACK SABBATH

EARLY IN THEIR career, Black Sabbath released albums and launched tours at a breakneck pace. For a while the relentless record-tour-record cycle helped fuel their creativity – from 1970 though 1972, Sabbath issued four classic albums in Black Sabbath, Paranoid, Master Of Reality and Vol. 4. These records spawned numerous anthems – The Wizard, Paranoid, Iron Man, War Pigs, N.I.B. and Sweet Leaf chief amongst them – and made Sabbath one of the world’s top hard rock bands of the era. And, as it would turn out, certainly one of the most influential on subsequent artists. In fact, if it wasn’t for a band that contained several members affiliated with Sabbath’s hometown of Birmingham – Led Zeppelin – the Sabs would have been the undisputed global heavy music kings.

But, despite all of their success and popularity, when the group tried to settle down and write their fifth album in