BLACK SABBATH "Sabbath Bloody Sabbath" UK WWA 1st PRESS

	£		68
	$		90

 
BLACK SABBATH "Sabbath Bloody Sabbath" UK WWA 1st PRESS w/LYRIC INNER, NO ACB LABEL CREDIT, 1st WWA MATRIX, EX

BLACK SABBATH
Sabbath Bloody Sabbath


ORIGINAL UK WEA (SUPER DE LUXE WWA 005) FIRST PRESSING (December 1973) OF BLACK SABBATH'S "Sabbath Bloody Sabbath" LP - THEIR LAST GREAT PIECE OF WORK

THE VINYL HAS THE FIRST ISSUE WWA LABELS WITH THE FIRST WWA 005 MATRIX AND IS HOUSED IN THE ORIGINAL MATT GATEFOLD SLEEVE WITH FACTORY SEALED AND FOLDED UNDER LEFT SIDE EDGE “Manufactured and Printed in England”
COMPLETE WITH THE ORIGINAL SHAPED CORNER, THIN TEXTURED PAPER LYRIC INNER (for all first issue criteria see below)
MATRIX: WWA 005 1Y ? 1 11 17 / WWA 005 2Y * 1 11 7(crossed out) 2 (the earliest UK matrix issued)

FIRST UK PRESS CRITERIA:
1) The 1st issue sleeve has “Manufactured and Printed in England” text on the reverse, later sleeves state “Printed in England by Howards Printers (Slough) Ltd."
2) The 1st issue lyric inner sleeve is made from thin textured paper with 2 fold over flaps and tapered top corners, later issues are on a thicker, smooth paper
3) The labels have no ACB credit above the spindle hole and the matrix has a WWA (not ACB) prefix, later issue labels carry ACB 00166 above the spindle hole and have a matrix number beginning ACB 116
4) The earliest matrices have a '?' and/or '*' separator preceding the 1 and (incorrectly) omit the '420' UK identification code

With 1973's Sabbath Bloody Sabbath, heavy metal godfathers Black Sabbath made a concerted effort to prove their remaining critics wrong by raising their creative stakes and dispensing unprecedented attention to the album's production standards, arrangements, and even the cover artwork.
As a result, bold new efforts like the timeless title track, "A National Acrobat," and "Killing Yourself to Live" positively glistened with a newfound level of finesse and maturity, while remaining largely faithful, aesthetically speaking, to the band's signature compositional style.
In fact, their sheer songwriting excellence may even have helped to ease the transition for suspicious older fans left yearning for the rough-hewn, brute strength that had made recent triumphs like Master of Reality and Vol. 4 (really, all their previous albums) such undeniable forces of nature.
But thanks to Sabbath Bloody Sabbath's nearly flawless execution, even a more adventurous experiment like the string-laden "Spiral Architect," with its tasteful background orchestration, managed to sound surprisingly natural, and in the dreamy instrumental "Fluff," Tony Iommi scored his first truly memorable solo piece.
If anything, only the group's at times heavy-handed adoption of synthesisers met with inconsistent consequences, with erstwhile Yes keyboard wizard Rick Wakeman bringing only good things to the memorable "Sabbra Cadabra" (who know he was such a great boogie-woogie pianist?), while the robotically dull "Who Are You" definitely suffered from synthesizer novelty overkill.
All things considered, though, Sabbath Bloody Sabbath was arguably Black Sabbath's fifth masterpiece in four years, and remains an essential item in any heavy metal collection.

Track Listing:
SIDE 1: SABBATH BLOODY SABBATH / A NATIONAL ACROBAT / FLUFF / SABBRA CADABRA
SIDE 2: KILLING YOURSELF TO LIVE / WHO ARE YOU / LOOKING FOR TODAY / SPIRAL ARCHITECT

LABELS: The labels are clean and bright with barely any spindle traces - this copy has clearly seen little play
VINYL Visual: The vinyl surfaces still retain their original deep, glossy sheen with just some superficial light hairlines - these are purely cosmetic and have no real audio consequence
VINYL Audio: Very deep and very heavy sound with crystal clear and detailed reproduction (although to my ears it does sound a bit 'muddy' in places - especially "Sabbra Cadabra" but this is an issue of the mix) and on playback at a very loud volume (which is how I always listen to my records prior to listings) there are no scratches, no skips or jumps, no surface noise, no groove-wear or distortion and barely any 'ticks' (hardly any, some very light ones on "Fluff" but nothing loud or intrusive). The whole LP plays extremely well with practically silent run-ins and track divisions and is very critically graded EXCELLENT to (+) for audio - this is a great sounding copy and just about as good as it gets (this is surprisingly a difficult LP to find in decent playing condition and in my 5 years on eBay it's the first time I have offered one for sale - due to most being so poorly pressed, playing with far too much surface noise and clicking, so even though this one has its faults (the few light clicks as mentioned above) and is described as EXCELLENT to (+), in all honesty I don't think you'll find one much better (I certainly haven't heard one)
SLEEVE: The first issue matt gatefold is in EXCELLENT condition. The front is unmarked and the back is pretty clean (especially for this sleeve which is normally very grubby on the white sections). All text on the spine is clear and bold but there is a small 'knock' to the central section (please see close-up photo which makes this look much worse than it is in the overall appearance of the cover).
INNER SLEEVE: The original thin paper textured lyric inner sleeve is practically as new and unlike most original inners it's still very, very white and there are no splits to any of the edges. There is some creasing to one of the side edges from insertion into the sleeve but overall, this is very minor. The patent number and "Made in Great Britain" text line has been mis-pressed an inch too high on the bottom edge so overlaps with some of the print (please see photos). Graded NEAR MINT this is one of the finest inners I have seen

PLEASE HAVE A LOOK AT MY PICTURES - I USUALLY TAKE QUITE A FEW SO YOU CAN GET A CLEAR INDICATION OF EVERY DETAIL OF THE ITEM
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