By the time Black Sabbath recorded their fourth album in 1972 (the ingeniously titled “Black Sabbath Vol. 4″), it seems like they were taking some cues from another famous 4th album of the time (“Led Zeppelin 4″) and expanding their musical palette beyond the goth doom and gloom heavy crunchers that made up their first three albums. In any case, the album had these two stellar ballads. The first is a painful breakup anthem (“Changes”) … the other is a lovely, acoustic instrumental number (“Laguna Sunrise”). Despite the fact that this is a heavy band playing mellowing out, these efforts are not forced or cheesy. They are truly splendid songs and makes one wish Sabbath had done more in this vein. To this day, they are still a supremely underrated band.

Changes:

Laguna Sunrise: