Best Judas Priest Album

Yes, but really it goes back to Stained Class.

How great is Defenders of the Faith, though? Shiiiiit... That and Stained might be my top two!

rock hard

ride free

ALLLLLL DAYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY

ALLLL NIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIGHT

k I figured I'd divert talk of the new album here so we can focus on other albums in the metal thread.

I've had about five listens now and whereas on first listen I couldn't tell if I 'liked' or 'loved' the album, the repeat listens have really solidified what an incredible album this is and it has definitely elevated to "great" territory.

It just feels more genuine than its two predecessors - now the only song I don't dig on it is "Crossfire".

In a way it's kind of amazing Halford sounds as good as he does, because between 1982 - 1991 he recorded some of the most challenging metal vocals of all time and then had to tour doing those songs.

if this album had come out in 2005 instead of "Angel of Retribution" i'd have been ecstatic.

Yeah, this is a joyous album. It's wonderful to hear Priest playing to their strengths and sounding so alive in 2014. I can see it becoming a big sentimental favourite of mine.

I haven't heard the previous couple records yet, but now I feel like I need to.

listening to Stained Class now. I think "White Heat, Red Hot" is one of my fav Priest tunes

that high pitched squealing lead that occasionally shows up during the verse just accentuates Halford's squealing vocals

Turbo tied with Painkiller ahead of Defenders; zero votes for Stained Class; Rocka Rolla in second place... is there some kind of weird parallax in the UK vs. USA reputations of these albums? or just a whole lotta challopsy metalheads?

Turbo has gotten a lot of apologia in recent years (not a criticism - I like when albums maligned at the time get re-examined years later), although voting for it as the 'best' is suspect.

I know there are some Priest purists who saw Painkiller as a misguided one-dimensional attempt to take a page from the bands they inspired (hint: they're RONG), and I think there are probably more Priest fans who rate Painkiller in their top 3 than outright vote it the 'best'.

Rocka Rolla was merely challopsy voting - check out the Bad Religion poll where Into the Unknown won. the zero votes for Stained Class was the real o_O to me.

i'm listening to SFV right now and I'm on "Take These Chains" (which I don't hate) but it makes me wonder, is there a thread for songs that completely obliterate the forward momentum of an album?

the amount of excess reverb on Rob's voice all over SFV is criminal as well. Glad they dialed it back on Defenders.

that said the title track is up next and stuff may be broken in my bedroom

I always love analyzing Halford's vocals over the years as his evolution was so, so gradual. what's interesting to me is that while Sin After Sin was really where he started increasing the usage of 'dirty tone' in his chest voice, he kept his falsetto mostly pure tone for years, other than the rare occasion here and there. He started dirtying up that tone a slight amount on Screaming for Vengeance but Defenders is where he started liberally turning his falsetto into more of a dirty shriek.

the breadth of his range in his heyday was quite impressive. I mean, he was hitting falsetto notes about as high as Dickinson at times, but Bruce's natural voice is essentially pretty high - even his 'low' notes (ie, opening of "Number of the Beast") aren't all that low. Whereas Rob had an expansive low range with a lot of resonance too. it wasn't no damn "8 octaves" like hyperbolic clowns trotted out, but it was quite insane.

I also just realized that holy hell, it's almost 2015, and Resurrection is almost 15 years old, and Angel of Retribution is almost 10.

finally heard Point of Entry in full for the first time. by no means 'bad', but really just kind of one-dimensional and bland. the singles are the best tunes, and there's a handful of good hard rock songs here, but they tend to bleed into each other. shame since Halford's in top form vocally.

seems weird that this was sandwiched by Steel and SFV - this almost sonically sounds like it should have come AFTER SFV.

I'm very fond of Point of Entry, even though only half of its songs are great. It was written and recorded in Ibiza, hence that sunny, fun feel to it. Plus their label was trying to steer the band into the AOR direction of Foreigner and Journey, and they were bent on success in America.

I definitely hear the AOR influence but they did a good job of keeping their identity in the process, the songs were more commercial but still had bite. just wish they were a little bit more memorable overall, but definitely not bad whatsoever.

i'm a big fan of AOR priest

Me too.

yep

I'm a little disappointed by British Steel. I've previously listened to Sad Wings Of Destiny and I think that's better by quite some distance.

"Rapid Fire" and "United" are amazing, "Metal Gods" and "Breaking The Law" are very good but I thought the rest was just okay to pretty good. Bonus track "Red, White & Blue" Is lovely but that's from 5 years later (so why's it on this?)

Think I'll go for Painkiller next because I love the title track so much.

I played Defenders of the Faith for maybe the third or fourth time today. It rules.

yeah Painkiller is front-to-back great, but don't sleep on Defenders

stained class though

Stained Class 0 is almost as bad as that Darkthrone poll. ILM was truly lost back in the day.

whole poll is an anomaly as i don't believe anyone likes rocka rolla that much

"Defenders" consistently way underrated. Better of the "twin" (as far as cover art goes anyway) albums afaic.

The twin being "Screaming".

O I mean Screaming is obviously awesome, but a bit inconsistent/badly-sequenced, yes

The Defenders of the Faith 30th Anniversary reissue is jaw dropping. Great remaster - lots of space and the bottom end finally kicks - and the live show is the live show everyone wanted from their 80s incarnation.

agreed, I got that last year and it was well worth it.

lol I conflated that with Screaming - yeah just got the Defenders reissue today. can't wait to hear the live show.

I was wondering...

yeah I was a lil confused by the 'concert everybody wanted' comment but it makes a lot more sense with Defenders. this was always the era I could never find good boots from

i had no idea that there was anyone who thought Rocka Rolla was the best Judas Priest album, much less enough for it to finish 2nd in the polling.

the only song I even like from that album is "One for the Road" and like is more like "kinda enjoyed"

as a singer the pitchiness I hear throughout the bootleg kinda irks me, but that was something Halford always struggled with to a degree. his flatness seemed to be less due to the highness of the notes and just faulty internal pitch.

but he sounds outright ferocious on most of the songs and this is metal, not choir class, so all is forgiven.

plus these are the best sounding live versions of some of these Defenders tracks I've ever heard

that moment when you need to get up and shower to get ready to go out and then the opening notes of "Victim of Changes" play

kinda impressive to hear him do an occasional proto-death metal growl being that the scene like, didn't fucking even exist yet!

Finished listening to Painkiller. I had heard very mixed things about it and I think it is pretty mixed bag quality wise, but overall a good album.

Like with British Steel, I think there's just too many formulaic sounding songs but I like this way better than British Steel.

Maybe the bigger metal fans will school me on this but I feel like a recurring problem in a lot of 80s-90s metal is that they will have these atmospheric and gorgeous intros and interludes but not incorporate those sounds into the songs entirety, prioritising the standard metal sound for the majority of the track instead.
I think "Night Crawler" in particular does this, but also the wonderful "Battle Hymn" setting up for the much less interesting "One Shot At Glory".

As everyone seems to agree, "Painkiller" is totally stunning (I love the Death version just as much), it has some of my favourite lyrics ever because it's just so gloriously over the top it offers a spectacle I can't find much anywhere else.

"Metal Meltdown" is amazing, that instrumental section in the middle with all the solos and effects is spectacular.
Love the drums and guitar riff in "Leather Rebel". There's good stuff sprinkled across the album so I'm never really irked by any of the tracks.

The other remaining albums in the box are Sin After Sin, Turbo and Angel Of Retribution. Which is the best of these three?

turbo

Sin After Sin! An unbelievably heavy album for its time.

Sin After Sin is so great. "Sinner" and "Dissident Aggressor"...bewm.

Redeemer of Souls still holds up very nicely

the live set (at Kemper Arena in KC) included on the Turbo reissue is pretty amazing...completely blows Priest...Live! out of the water

I've heard that. Looking at it on Spotify now - it's a really weird set list.

honestly it's almost a perfect setlist for my personal priest tastes, i've always been a big turbo apologist and it's funny they do a ton of turbo and poppier stuff from the early 80s then all of a sudden jump back to the 70s for a big nearly 90 minute Victim of Changes followed by Green Manalishi...