“Snowblind” by Black Sabbath

"Snowblind" comes off Vol. 4, Black Sabbath's fourth album, which Vertigo put out on 25 September 1972, and it's the sound of a band grabbing the controls for the first time. Rodger Bain was gone from the producer's chair. The credit went to the band and their manager, Patrick Meehan, but Meehan barely laid a finger on it; Tony Iommi did the real steering.

All four members share the music credit, with Geezer Butler writing the words. Ozzy Osbourne sings, Iommi plays guitar, Butler bass and Bill Ward drums and percussion, with Colin Caldwell and Vic Coppersmith-Heaven engineering. The album around it kept all the crushing weight of Master of Reality while wandering into stranger corners, and though the critics still turned up their noses, the record sold by the truckload.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz.