Black Sabbath: Ranking Every Ozzy Osbourne Album From Worst To Best

Sabbath's third album, following hot on the heels of their opening one-two salvo, remains arguably their most influential record on the wider music spectrum, sowing the seeds of doom and sludge metal with its limb-bludgeoning heaviness and a favourite of musicians everywhere.

Children of the Grave arguably represented the group's finest anti-war anthem, powered with a relentless piledriver riff, while Sweet Leaf swings in with a blissed-out stoner swing. But closer Into the Void, with its insidiously brutal creep, arguably finds them at their heaviest peak.

Though the album doesn't quite showcase the expansiveness that would mark out their next efforts, the record was also recorded at something of a more luxurious pace by the band's standards, between February and April 1971 after Paranoid's six-day turnaround.

Master of Reality's increased heaviness came around from Iommi further downtuning his guitar in order to reduce stress on his playing style, with Butler electing to follow suit - though on the other end of the scale, the guitarist also flexed his flute skills once more on Solitude.