Sold Date: September 23, 2018
Start Date: September 13, 2018
Final Price: $26.00 (AUD)
Bid Count: 4
Seller Feedback: 3545
Buyer Feedback: 7

Classic Black Sabbath with the full Vertigo swirl label. 6360 071. This Australian Ist pressing has the black text on a white centre label on side two. Vinyl is a strong VG+ - some scuffs and light marks but plays very well. Gatefold cover has some surface wear along the right edge as can be seen in the picture, other than that light shelf wear and light creasing – VG, back cover is VG+ with light shelf wear and some ring wear.

AllMusic's five-star review by Steve Huey reads, " is the point in 's career where the band's legendary drug consumption really starts to make itself felt. And it isn't just in the lyrics, most of which are about the blurry line between reality and illusion.  has all the messiness of a heavy metal , and if it lacks that album's overall diversity, it does find  at their most musically varied, pushing to experiment amidst the drug-addled murk. As a result, there are some puzzling choices made here (not least of which is the inclusion of "FX"), and the album often contradicts itself. 's wail is becoming more powerful here, taking greater independence from 's guitar riffs, yet his vocals are processed into a nearly textural element on much of side two. Parts of  are as ultra-heavy as , yet the band also takes its most blatant shots at accessibility to date -- and then undercuts that very intent. The effectively concise "Tomorrow's Dream" has a chorus that could almost be called radio-ready, were it not for the fact that it only appears once in the entire song. "St. Vitus Dance" is surprisingly upbeat, yet the distant-sounding vocals don't really register. The notorious piano-and-Mellotron ballad "Changes" ultimately fails not because of its change-of-pace mood, but more for a raft of the most horrendously clichéd rhymes this side of "moon-June." Even the crushing "Supernaut" -- perhaps the heaviest single track in the  catalog -- sticks a funky, almost danceable acoustic breakdown smack in the middle. Besides "Supernaut," the core of  lies in the midtempo cocaine ode "Snowblind," which was originally slated to be the album's title track until the record company got cold feet, and the multi-sectioned prog-leaning opener, "Wheels of Confusion." The latter is one of 's most complex and impressive compositions, varying not only riffs but textures throughout its eight minutes. Many doom and stoner metal aficionados prize the second side of the album, where 's vocals gradually fade further and further away into the murk, and 's guitar assumes center stage. The underrated "Cornucopia" strikes a better balance of those elements, but by the time "Under the Sun" closes the album, the lyrics are mostly lost under a mountain of memorable, contrasting riffery. Add all of this up, and  is a less cohesive effort than its two immediate predecessors, but is all the more fascinating for it. Die-hard fans sick of the standards come here next, and some end up counting this as their favorite  record for its eccentricities and for its embodiment of the band's excesses."

www.allmusic.com/album/vol-4-mw0000199950