Black Sabbath's fourth album was created under various new circumstances. The album was released in Los Angeles, not in the homeland of England. Guitarist Tony Iommi also took over the role of producer, and within the band, the continued use of illegal substances formed some noticeable tensions. Cocaine was regularly hidden in large loudspeaker boxes in the studio smuggle. Half the recording budget was spent that way. This explains Song titles like "Snowblind." which was the intended title of the album, a confrontation with the record company prevented this. Musically, the heavy sound of its predecessor was developed further with even more experiments, so that the almost consistently good reviews did not give any indication of the difficult process of development.