The front cover art was taken from a painting by artist Lynn Curlee, Smoking Angels, inspired by a 1928 photograph of women dressed as angels smoking backstage during a break at a college pageant. Angels smoking cigarettes ... what else can better describe the simultaneous existence of heaven and hell?

The back cover illustration of the band was drawn by artist Harry Carmean.

The album was also available as LP-Picture disk.

Black Sabbath is an English rock band, formed in Birmingham in 1968. The group soon began incorporating occult themes with horror-inspired lyrics and tuned-down guitars but also composed songs dealing with social instability, political corruption, the dangers of drug abuse and apocalyptic prophecies of the horrors of war.

Osbourne's regular abuse of alcohol and other drugs led to his dismissal from the band in 1979. The original line-up reunited with Obourne in 1997. Black Sabbath are often cited as pioneers of heavy metal music with releases such as Black Sabbath (1970), Paranoid (1970) and Master of Reality (1971). They were ranked by MTV as the 'Greatest Metal Band' of all time.

Black Sabbath | Paranoid