After the Sabbath: Into the Void (1971–72) | Master of Reality and Vol. 4

It’s 1971, and Black Sabbath already had two very successful albums behind them, especially considering how little support they got from the press and the industry. Paranoid gave Ozzy the freedom to wail and scream with unchecked confidence, let Tony Iommi unleash distortion straight from hell, let Geezer Butler keep delivering wild and dominant bass lines, and gave Bill Ward space to drum more and more aggressively. The band was clearly evolving on every level. But they never touched their winning card. Their whole appeal was already defined: darker, heavier, louder. A winning formula doesn’t need to change. Just sharpen the edges. That’s exactly what they did on Master of Reality, which they released impressively fast, less than a year after its predecessor, which, as you may recall, had come out the same year as their debut.

Master of Reality (1971)

If we go back for a second to the opening tracks of the first two Sabbath albums, each one seems to serve as a statement of intent. The first opens with a horror song. The second with an anti-war song. The third opens with a love song. Not for a woman, but for a leaf. A marijuana leaf.

Master of Reality begins with the sound of a cough, and then “Sweet Leaf” kicks in. Ozzy confesses his love for hashish directly to the hash itself, ending with a hope that one day the world will understand the sweet leaf’s true meaning. That hazy, stoned bounce gets instantly shattered by “After Forever”, a direct response to the rumors swirling around the band and its supposed connection to Satanic cults. The lyrics explicitly reference belief in God and the possibility of true redemption – if it’s not already too late.

“Children of the Grave”, one of Sabbath’s most powerful and well-known songs, opens with an unforgettable bassline and spirals into chaotic intensity. It reflects the grim state of the world but ends with a kind of strange optimism and a call for something better. The track hits hard, almost as much as the two instrumentals that surround it – “Embryo” and “Orchid”. “Lord of This World” delivers classic Sabbath despair. “Solitude”, quiet and free of distortion, seems like a direct continuation of “Planet Caravan” from the previous album, although the lyrics here are far more depressive and openly suicidal. The album closes with “Into the Void”, a spaceward journey toward a better world. A place where, according to the final line, you can find “peace and happiness in every way”. Strange? A little. Surprising? Maybe.

Unlike its predecessor, Master of Reality had fewer accessible or catchy songs. There were no real hits, aside from “Children of the Grave”, and maybe “Sweet Leaf”, which was more than anything a bold and direct provocation. That didn’t help their standing with the mainstream press. But Sabbath kept going their own way. The more direct they became, the more fans they pulled in.

But it wasn’t just the boldness and attitude that made Master of Reality what it was. The album featured more complex song structures, impressive growth in arrangements, and originality in the writing. And – surprise – even some variation in the messages they chose to deliver, at least in some tracks. The things they hadn’t dared to express in earlier albums found space here. Even these four gloomy weirdos managed to sneak in a small, warped form of love between the graves and ruins that shaped their world.

Vol. 4 (1972)

I’ll start with a confession. “Snowblind” is one of my favorite songs of all time. Not that it’s a particularly unique opinion, I know (pardon!), but since the first time I heard it, I knew. That was it. We were bound together for life. Until death do us part, as they say. As the years have passed and music kept changing around me, I find that this one still holds. Every time. It still speaks to me, and it always will. It seems to contain everything I keep searching for in music – slow, sludgy weight, distant lyrics (with or without the cocaine, I honestly don’t care), and an atmosphere that no other song has ever managed to cut that deep.

Of course, it’s not just “Snowblind” that makes Vol. 4, released in 1972, my favorite Sabbath album. What makes it so is the sum of everything around it. The whole set of songs, the strange little corners, the risks. The album feels like a summit. Sabbath at their creative peak, as I hear it. Here the band allowed themselves to try something new. Not just new sounds, but a completely new approach. And still, they kept the core of what came before. They held onto the legacy of the first three albums. The result was a tighter record. Smarter, more focused, more grown up. And in some ways more influential than anything they did before.

The album is full of movement. On one side, a return to roots. On the other, successful experiments in entirely new directions. And throughout, better arrangements, sharper production, and a band that sounds like it knows exactly where it’s going.

After two albums of full-force riff-driven rock, Sabbath return here to underline their connection to blues rock. Just listen to “Wheels of Confusion/The Straightener”, which opens the record. Then there’s the jumpy “St. Vitus Dance” and the explosive energy of “Supernaut”. “Tomorrow’s Dream” feels like it carries the same riff spirit as “Sweet Leaf” or “Into the Void”. But the real center of gravity is “Snowblind”. A sludge classic. It contains what is still, to this day, the most stunning and emotional guitar solo Tony Iommi has ever played, ending with the unexpected touch of strings. That might sound ridiculous, but it’s the opposite. It was a bold move, and it worked. The result is beautiful. Unforgettable.

The opening riffs of “Cornucopia” and “Under the Sun/Every Day Comes and Goes” are the point where Sabbath officially put the “doom” in doom metal. The tone is set. The door is opened. The rest followed.

Beyond those tracks, Vol. 4 includes three pieces that Sabbath had never dared attempt before. “Changes” is a love ballad – yes, a love ballad – with piano, no guitars, no drums. “FX” is a pure experimental track of guitar bleeps and nothing more. And “Laguna Sunrise” is something else entirely. An instrumental jam, soft, calm, sweet, again featuring strings. Unlike the eerie interludes of earlier albums, this one is warm. If they had tried to stick any of these tracks into one of the first three records, I would have assumed they’d lost their minds and were ready to pack it in. But here, in Vol. 4, with the band locked in and fully formed, they don’t feel out of place. On the contrary. They sound like new territory – a place Sabbath hadn’t yet dared to go, and one they finally reached. It’s real progress.

And still, the true uniqueness of Vol. 4, at least the way I hear it, is how it moves beyond its obvious impact on the development of heavy rock. The previous albums helped shape metal. Vol. 4 hints at something else. Early signs of sludge and doom. That off-kilter bend in the riff, that dirty, low-tuned guitar, the pace that’s not just slow, but too slow, much too slow… Some would say this was Ozzy’s last real album with the band, before he started drifting in and out and eventually left for good. I see it a little differently.