Album of the Day

After a grueling world tour behind VOL. 4, and a month of fruitless sessions at Los Angeles' Record Plant, Black Sabbath decamped to Clearwell Castle in Gloucestershire, England, to work on their fifth album. With its dungeon and resident ghosts, the place was just what the band needed, and SABBATH BLOODY SABBATH brims with inspiration. “We'd managed to strike just the right balance between our old heaviness and our new, 'experimental' side,” noted frontman Ozzy Osbourne of the set, which features such classic originals as “Killing Yourself to Live” and the title track while upping the ante on arrangements by successfully incorporating orchestration and synthesizers (Yes' Rick Wakeman guests on “Sabbra Cadabra”). Released this month in 1973, the Platinum-selling SABBATH BLOODY SABBATH belongs in any heavy metal collection.