Heavy rock trailblazers Black Sabbath are set to have their first number one album for 43 years.
The band, fronted by Ozzy Osbourne, last achieved the feat with their second release Paranoid in 1970 which featured signature tracks such as War Pigs and Iron Man.
New album 13 reunites original members Osbourne, Tony Iommi and Geezer Butler for the first time in 35 years, although they have released other recordings during that time with different personnel.
The Rick Rubin-produced comeback, which was out on Monday, is at number one in the midweek album chart, according to the Official Charts Company, and is expected to hang on until the weekend.
Osbourne, who had marital difficulties earlier this year as a result of a temporary return to drinking, said: "I can't believe Black Sabbath may have its first number one album in 43 years."
The band managed to complete the album despite guitarist Iommi being treated for cancer during its recording. Black Sabbath are touring the UK in December, including a homecoming show at Birmingham's LG Arena.
Their album has drawn acclaim and is 4,500 sales ahead of Beady Eye whose second album BE came out this week.
Atmospheric electronica duo Boards Of Canada are at number three in the midweek chart with Tomorrow's Harvest, their highest-ever placing.
Leah McFall looks likely to score the first top 10 hit for a contestant from BBC1's The Voice. Her cover of Gloria Gaynor's I Will Survive is at number eight in the midweek singles chart.
Robin Thicke looks on target to achieve a third week at number one with Blurred Lines.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article