Best Judas Priest Album

Screaming for Vengeance didn't get nearly enough love here, top 40 phase or whatever the jams on it are so fucking solid

can't believe 0 votes for stained class, baffled by the rocka rolla/british steel love, but glad that SWOD is rightly recognized as their best album

special shout-out to "sinner" from sin after sin - that superstoned middle interlude is one of my fav musical moments of all time

My favourite will always be Defenders of the Faith. Personally I've always thought Vengeance is a bit overrated, the title track is mediocre and a couple others just make me cringe ("Devil's Child", for one)...I prefer the dense, cold sound of Defenders.

(Stained Class and Hell Bent For Leather aren't far behind)

oh man the sfv title track was kicking my ass today. those guitars!

0 votes for stained class is insane!

turbo tied with painkiller is also pretty weird.

as far as top 40 priest goes, I think I prefer point of entry to screaming for vengeance. but both are cool.

we follow the dreamer

British Steel way too high in this original poll. Good album,but even the high points are way watered down compared to their glory days. I'd take Sin after Sin, Stained Class, Sad Wings, even Defenders and Screaming over it.

just this week i have been listening to sad wings and everytime i think to myself holy shit dude this is like the best album

the only downside to it is I think Rob's vocal on Victim of Changes pales in comparison to how he did it on the live album.

"Tyrant", though.......ohhhhhhhhhh man.

best song

Rocka Rolla has to be a joke on this list. that album is purely forgettable.

today is a perfect day for Unleashed in the East, featuring the best version of "Victim of Changes" ever...

Rocka rolla at 2 might be the most perplexing poll result ive ever seen on ilm

Also painkiller has become overrated I think

I love Painkiller. though really I think my favs are Sad Wings, Stained Class, Sin After Sin, and Hell Bent...really that period for me was just awesome. Defenders and Screaming are great too.

Rocka Rolla was very zzzzzZzzzzZZzzzz.

How the hell did Stained Class not get any votes?

Christ "Electric Eye" is such a killer tune

When I start listening to Judas Priest, sometimes I get all anxious and twitchy and just think of all the amazing Judas Priest songs at my fingertips and how I want to listen to ALL of them NOW and start making playlists in my head and getting all worked up and then before I know it I wake up at 3:00 in the morning with Sin After Sin spinning in its runout groove and a half-glass of bourbon beside me on the floor. Does this happen to anyone else?

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...

90 minute Victim of Changes!

Take that, Grateful Dead!

Is that real? Do the audience go along with it?

Just spent a minute or so figuring out how a 90 minute Victim of Changes might pan out, basically it'd be the greatest piece of music ever recorded if the arrangement was done right

The audience is advised early on to take another look around, they're not goin' anywhere.

haha ok that was supposed to be 9 minute

tales from pyrographic oceans

yeah I was like I don't think even Halford would be able to hang for the whole 90 minutes of that lol
If KK was still in the band he would have been up for it tho I reckon

can we make 90 minute Victim of Changes happen ffs

When I started this poll I remember thinking that the results were in line with ILM at the time. It's interesting that the site has changed that new people here think it was strange. As much as a new poll might be interesting, a better poll would be to pick the band's second best album, because every incarnation of ILM will pick Sad Wings for sure.

rocka rolla at 2 is still mystifying to me

I can't remember a thing about it

Listening to Point of Entry for the first time in quite a few years, the record sounds a whole lot like Judas Priest trying to write AC/DC songs. Some of these tunes would fit fine on something like Flick of the Switch with the reverb.

So... Turbo. First few spins I couldn't really be arsed with it but it's a lot better than I was expecting and even some of the extremely cliched songs are pretty good.

"Turbo Lover" is the only track I like completely.

The early verses in "Locked In" that end with "you got the key, the key to my heart, go ahead and use it" are some of my favorite Priest moments ever but the chorus and much of the rest of the song feel like they just weren't up to delivering what should have been one of their best songs.

"Private Property" is pretty good, could have been an anti-sexual harassment anthem if it didn't have a few lines of incredible bragging! Not that I think he should have changed it.

"Parental Guidance" and "Rock You All Around The World" are two that seemed the most cringey and cliched but they're actually quite fun and I like it how Halford is acting like an ambassador for heavy music.

"Out In The Cold" is pretty good but after that I kind of lose interest. Until... bonus track "All Fired Up" is better than anything on the album! Just awesome.
Turns out that "All Fired Up" and "Red, White & Blue" are both from the Turbo sessions. Why didn't these get used earlier? What on earth were they thinking?

I didn't realise that Judas Priest started in the 60s but all the original members were gone within a short number of years.

Sin After Sin is good fun. "Diamonds & Rust", "Let Us Prey/Call For The Priest", "Here Come the Tears" moving into "Dissident Aggressor" are all great.

Stained Class is the best and got screwed here

Stab! BAAAAAAWWWWLLL, punch! CRAAAAWWWWWWLLLL

yeah stained class is the one

I maintain 7 votes for Rocka Rolla as best Priest album is still the single worst ILM poll result

"Dissident Aggressor" is the shit!

Stained Class, Screaming For Vengeance, Defenders of the Faith are prob my top 3.

I mean, Sad Wings of Destiny & Rocka Rolla are cool & all but I don’t really think of them when i’m looking for a ~PRIEST~ fix.

I’d be less upset if Turbo got top spot. I mean jfc

maintain 7 votes for Rocka Rolla as best Priest album is still the single worst ILM poll result

― The Desus & Mero Chain (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Saturday, September 1, 2018 11:20 AM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

this was some Sanjaya shit

I like metal but never liked a single thing by Judas Priest - 2 votes

I wish at the time we explored what motivated these two sad creatures...

Sad Wings is one of my favs for sure. "Tyrant", "The Ripper", "Victim of Changes", "Dreamer Deceiver" are 4 of my fav tunes.

Rocka Rolla tho....I can like, hum one tune ("One for the Road")

I'm glad to see some of the best stuff is yet ahead of me. Never knew Stained Class was supposed to be special.

Rocka Rolla is fine but it doesn't even feel like they've found themselves yet, it's like the voting Book of Talyesin as the best Deep Purple album....Sad Wings is very 70s but still feels like a metal record and Priest

Rocka Rolla is the indie pick

ums otm

I am now going to finally listen to Ram It Down cos why the fuck not, it's about time

I still love the title track and "Blood Red Skies", Johnny B Goode is awful. everything else, I haven't heard!

"Heavy Metal" - the fuck is this pseudo-Def Leppard shit

"Love Zone" - this was p much written for strip clubs wasn't it

"Come and Get It" - this at least SOUNDS like Priest, at least until the bridge when it goes to hair metal town. and these lyrics, fuuuuck

"Hard as Iron" - jesus christ

"Blood Red Skies" - always loved this one, a fav. shame about the album it's on

"I'm a Rocker" - this song is wearing zebra pants with a shit-stain on the back

"Johnny B Goode" - god, what they did to the chorus is just criminal

"Love You to Death" - this could p much be a late 80s Motley song

"Monsters of Rock" - this is fucking 'Stonehenge'

Not too keen on Angel Of Retribution but "Hellrider" is really fun and "Loch Ness" is the most nwobhm thing, I'm impressed how straight faced it is, it's pretty cool.

we should really repoll this

results more baffling every time

I like metal but never liked a single thing by Judas Priest

True true trollish response would be 'I like metal hence I never liked a single thing by Judas Priest'.

started reading Confess.

in the foreword, he uses his favorite recent phrase: "I am the stately homo of heavy metal".

the story of how he first sang in class and his teacher took him to several other classrooms to have him sing was pretty awesome. can't wait to finish this.

Martin Popoff's book on Judas Priest is quite good.

I would have voted Stained Class. Rocka Rolla is not an embarrassment but none of it works either, partly due to a completely leaden drummer, who then has to try to start a groove in 5/4 time in the opening track.

Confess is really good.

Huh...I wouldn’t be thrown if someone told me Sad Wings was there favorite because it’s pretty interesting and transitional but still..

Not exactly an uncommon opinion

I never got the detraction from Painkiller being too much pandering to more 'extreme' metal like thrash, et al. the album is earwormy as fuck. like, it's more 'extreme' Priest, but the vocal and guitar melodies are all over the place awesome.

little 18 year old me probably gravitated to it for that reason. it melts faces, but it still has their songcraft at the center.

When Pantera supported Priest it seemed to be a revelation for Priest... I still remember the pix from that tour.

https://scontent-lga3-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t1.6435-9/46440539_1858849597540264_7416699773278748672_n.jpg?_nc_cat=111&ccb=1-5&_nc_sid=8bfeb9&_nc_ohc=EC6Wt1v-s8kAX_nEJyf&tn=0A0EJtp07Dhgs60j&_nc_ht=scontent-lga3-1.xx&oh=9fdc3f5da608ea411b86587e3fdf94c8&oe=615E445F

The album was definitely a case where Priest saw the future and wanted to be a part of it.

I'm so old, I can remember when Phil Anselmo had an upper register.

probably the only vocalist in history that degraded not because he smoked, stopped practicing, got old, but because he felt his old singing style was "too wussy" and deliberately never went back to it and proceeded to destroy any ability to sing like that anymore, probably intentionally

ffs the high notes in Cemetary Gates are insane.

for whatever reason I spent half the post above mis-remembering Phil Anselmo being dead and remembered he's not.

oh well

I always liked Painkiller

Painkiller has aged beautifully over the last 30 years.

speaking of, I caught a vid from the Bloodstock set, and they did "Hell Patrol". the only previous time they played it, he took the chorus down an octave.

not this time.

and he hit the high notes during the bridge too.

idk what he did but his voice sounds way better than in, like, 2009.

was he a smoker?

feel like I should know that after I read Confess....ugh.

I know he abstains from drinking after some crazy living in the 80s. can't recall on the cigs.

Painkiller is such a great album. I was positively obsessed with it for a while earlier this year. Endless riffs and hooks

xpost yeah just thinking of one of the only ways that an older person's singing voice might improve over time

one day I went to karaoke at a local haunt. this place used to be great, but new Trump/gun-loving owners came in, and fired my friend the KJ who had worked there for like 20+ years. so needless to say I didn't wanna go back, but I got invited by two friends one night and I said 'hey why not'.

so I look through the songs and I am surprised to see "Nightcrawler" by Judas Priest, from Painkiller, on the karaoke list. so I put in to sing it.

this is a very countrified audience and I get up already thinking they'll hate me, but maybe if I do my best Halford, I'll win them over. then the karaoke track starts and I find out it's a fucking MIDI file. the guitars sound like farts.

I suddenly felt like I was singing over Nintendo music, sweat profusely the entire time, and sang like garbage cos I wanted it to be over.

I blame Painkiller for this.

xpost yeah that would make sense. i'll have to look it up.

I have a theory that he might have gone to a vocal coach/lessons to teach him new ways to produce the same sounds. because it does seem like he's altered his technique a little bit on the falsetto to make it work without sounding like he swallowed barbed wire.

I'd like to hear a MIDI version of "Nightcrawler". However, I would not like to sing over one in public

sounded like it was made in 1995

That's how I'm imagining it, like something from the original Doom soundtrack

i feel like the general consensus about "turbo" being a really fun, engaging oddity in their catalog has risen over the years which makes me happy

also watched the US festival doc again the other day and goddamn do they completely destroy on metal day

crue seems so fucking feeble compared to priest, scorpions, and (believe it or not) triumph, motley is some real non-playing motherfuckers to quote miles davis

motley have always stunk live
100% non playing motherfuckers

love the Scorps. would love to see them one day. more of an Uli Jon Roth era fan but I like the stadium stuff too.

Turbo definitely has grown in stature in retrospect. I can understand why.

Priest's trajectory in the 80s was a little odd - British Steel and Point of Entry was clearly their attempt to go a more commercial direction, but then they started bending back towards balls to the wall metal. Screaming for Vengeance was kind of a mixture of commercial and tr00 metal, somewhat jarring how they go from like the title track to "Fever", or "Riding on the Wind" to "Take These Chains". and then Defenders of the Faith pretty much went all the way back to face-melting metal. even the Ray Haligan, Jr penned-song ("Some Heads are Gonna Roll") sounded like a Priest classic. so I think fans thought they would continue in that direction, and they incorporated synths and poppier elements, unlike their previous commercial efforts. Guessing fans were just confused, thinking they'd continue in the Defenders direction.

removing expectations from the mix helps. the title track has always been glorious, one of the best examples of synth-80s metal done well. "Out in the Cold" is great, and I enjoy the cheese of "Rock You All Around the World". I hate "Wild Nights and Crazy Days" and "Parental Guidance". but Priest taking this turn in 86 wasn't, like, a Cold Lake type move. they'd already made similar pivots before, they just happened to have arguably their best, most uptempo album sandwiched in between those maneuvers.

Ram It Down, on the other hand, is completely irredeemable. other than the title track and Blood Red Skies, I guess.

listening to Point of Entry rn, I really love this

i never really understand the metal audience but my feeling is that is there really any harm in some curveballs? like looking through their catalog is there shortage of judas priest true metal songs?

a little disappointed that "thunder road" isn't a springsteen cover, given that they've covered joan baez it didn't seem impossible

no harm in curveballs. but metal has a sizable population of meatheads who don't think the formula should change. the first (and only) time I saw Savatage live, there was a 40-something guy who kept saying "fuck this, play Sirens" for about an hour, until they finally did. everybody was telling him to shut the fuck up.

hell, right now, there are metalheads (not on ILX) shitting on the new Maiden because it's long and ponderous and doesn't sound like "The Trooper". (there are others who have more legit, reasoned criticisms, but there's a whole lot of the former too).

quite frankly, I'm disappointed we never got an album like their cover of "You are Everything", of which only 60 seconds has been made publicly available. the sample of that cover is one of the most amazing things I've ever heard, like they metalized the song without losing its pop foundation and it's gorgeous. and Halford himself says he's a 'pop tart' in Confess, so I suspect he'd love to record an album of pop and R&B covers.

I...don't hate Ram It Down. It's about half a good album; the title track, "Heavy Metal," "Come and Get It," "Hard as Iron" ...all decent songs. And the ugliness of the production (the guitars especially) works for me in the same way AC/DC's Fly On The Wall does. It's just a really ear-punishing album, but it's got more songs I actually like than Turbo. And you can absolutely hear that they were two halves of the same coin; there are synths and drum machines all over Ram It Down.

i'm a fellow fly on the wall apologist

My husband got to interview Rob Halford via Zoom, and I can't stop giggling at the perfect framing--namely, the wizard throwing up double metal horns on the shelf behind him. (The Halford candle is also a perfect touch.) pic.twitter.com/JcBsTPyTpd

— Annie Zaleski (@anniezaleski) September 9, 2021

The video, btw! https://t.co/XMLcnNORNZ

— Annie Zaleski (@anniezaleski) September 9, 2021

Ha i just saw that and here i am

JUDAS PRIEST's RICHIE FAULKNER Undergoes 'Major Emergency Heart Surgery'

Just saw them in St. Louis on Saturday, they were great, and Faulkner was extremely impressive. Hope he's alright, needless to say.

saw them (outdoors) in Orlando a few weeks ago, and yeah, incredible. this is horrible. he's only my age :( though good that they're discovering it now rather than later.

jeez, sending em up for richie

Real shame, they were due to play next week. Crossed fingers indeed and here's hoping!

Richie has been a big factor in Priest's creative resurgence over the last couple albums. Hoping he pulls through okay.

Jesus, when a younger guy in the band is having medical issues, it really makes me think the days of Priest are coming to an end sooner than I thought.

I mean that's why I got the ticket for what should have been the show next week, I never have seen them. Crossed fingers I still get that chance.

Twice crossed fingers now. Truly I should just never uncross them.

This story is wild.

Richie Faulkner ruptured his aorta, onstage, in the middle of the Painkiller solo

very lucky to be alive. but how tf did he manage to keep playing?

Christ on a bike!

why are people occasionally sour on Killing Machine/Hell Bent for Leather?

I mean, it has:

Delivering the Goods
Rock Forever
Hell Bent for Leather
Killing Machine
Running Wild
Before the Dawn

Like....few bands could have that many quality songs like that on an album and have it a lesser album!

I know some have said it was a kind of 'dumbing down' of their sound, but I feel that applies more to British Steel. to me, Stained Class is where they started to pare down the progressive elements in their music and adapt to a faster, more aggressive sound - though they did still have some of the flashy elements of their past in songs like "Exciter".

to me, British Steel and Screaming are the 'overrated' albums, though I like the former and still love the latter (but it has filler).

I thought Screaming for Vengeance would win this in a landslide.

Sad Wings is reaaaaaaaaaaally popular among heads.

my problem with Screaming is how uneven it is. "Take These Chains" follows three high octane tunes and just kills the forward momentum. Hiring an outside songwriter who wrote a song that really didn't have Priest's sound was a bit of a mistake - Haligan Jr did a better job on "Some Heads are Gonna Roll", but "Take These Chains" really hurts the forward momentum. Granted, after three ripping tunes, a change of pace was expected for the fourth track, but perhaps a ballad might have served better, rather than what felt like a Badfinger-sounding song.

Also have just never been that into "Pleasure and Pain" and "Fever", they feel a cut below the rest for me. But the rest of the album is so goddamned good it fairly well redeems it for me, but puts it a cut below classic. whereas I feel like Defenders actually IS the rightful classic.

how many times can i say 'forward momentum'

whereas I feel like "You've Got Another Thing Coming" was a good attempt at a radio tune, very simple, catchy, and effective. the right way to 'sell out' for lack of a better word.

listened to a bunch of priest last year and agreed that defenders should be viewed way more highly. i think maybe the title cover/art wasn't as iconic as screaming or british steel?

it does kinda look like an Atari game cover.

and yeah even though British Steel isn't my fav by a long shot, the cover is all time. I even have a stein with that art on it. same with Screaming - perhaps my favorite cover.

stained class remains The One for me if i have to pick, i do not have to pick tho

BS is just an incredible image, so immediate

Sad Wings is the one I go to the most these days, just not a bad moment on the entire album. "Dreamer Deceiver" takes me places.

Defenders > Screaming for sure, but Screaming has the best cover art in Priest's entire catalog (with British Steel a close second) so it's always gonna pull people in.

"The Hellion/Electric Eye" is also an intro most dreams can't even dream of equaling

most BANDS jesus fuck

Absolutely, but I'm listening to Defenders now and there's, like, one song I don't love ("Night Comes Down") and that's after seven bangers in a row.

see I love that one.

I also love how homoerotic the album is.

his book was funny, he basically talks about "Jawbreaker" and says, yes, it's obviously about oral, how the fuck could anybody not know that.

I think it's basically fake (I think?) but I love Unleashed in the East

I think the instruments are live recorded but Halford's vocals were in the studio.

he explained in his book that the night it was recorded, he got very fucked up and gave one of his worst vocal performances or something.

but it's still a great listen as there are some iconic versions of songs on there, especially "Victim of Changes".

it's funny, too, like I was a big Priest live recording listener back in the day and I used to notice there'd be occasional live shows where he sounded like pitchy dogshit and then he talks about how high/drunk he used to get before shows and it makes more sense. because he's stellar more often than not, but if you're not on top of your game and singing music that challenging, it's going to go south.

I need to read his book. Halford was one of my favorite interview subjects back when I was writing more about metal. I got to talk to him twice; the second time, he actually pulled me in to guest on Jim Breuer's satellite radio show with him and the guitarist from his solo band.

And I don't hate "Night Comes Down," ftr — it's just that it's a Foreigner song stuck in the middle of a Judas Priest album.

I listen to 70s priest a lot

I think British steel is underrated, kinda on the same lines as killing machine. There’s literally nothing wrong with it.

the intro to "the rage" where they turn into a heavy metal version of the police for minute rules so much

listening to Nostradamus for probably the first and only time.

i'm sitting at the community pool, it's nice out, and it seems like the perfect setting to waste 100 minutes

I will preface that I read Adrien's review of this beforehand so I have mentally prepped myself for the awful lyrics

opening things with not one but two plodding songs is not the most auspicious start

jesus god, I can't do this. i'm falling asleep already

going to Redeemer of Souls instead, which isn't quite the knockout that Firepower was, but dope af anyway

Haha, Nostradamus is awful. A real shame because Rob sings the hell out of the wackadoo lyrics.

Compare that album with the subsequent two records with Richie, and it sounds so wooden and lifeless. Faulkner deserves a lot of credit for Priest's late renaissance.

that he does.

Rob H is indeed a fantastic interview: he told me that once the band heard AC/DC, they didn't much wanna do Sad Wings epic fantasy as much and Killing Machine and British Steel is where that comes to bear particularly; though the title cut of the former seems to modeled on ZZ Top, and as such is a completely unique and a secret classic Priest tune, and I think B.S. contains the worst Priest tune, "You don't have to be old to be wise."

"Killing Machine" the song totally sounds like ZZ Top, was just thinking that when I played the album yesterday.

There's another track on KM (can't remember which one now) where the guitar solo is a total Southern rock rip.

"Rock Forever"

I always giggle at that harmonized guitar solo because it sounds like Allman Brothers

i really like "dont have to be old"... i could picture Motorhead playing it... for me the loser on Steel is probably United - which feels like a failed attempt to do a queen-y anthem

Oddly, the first Priest album I got was Point of Entry. I think I got it from one of the record clubs. I don't remember anything from it, and I'm not sure I'm all that inclined to give it a re-listen.

"United" sucks.

for cheesy, derivative anthem songs, "Take On the World" from the previous album did it much better.

"You Don't Have to Be Old to Be Wise" is kinda dad-rocky even for that time, despite the non-dad lyrics.

United is really the only song on British Steel I don't like at all. it's a fairly consistent album in that I like almost everything on it, but nothing reaches the stratosphere for me either, other than "Metal Gods". solid B plus for me throughout.

Point of Entry I like the obvious songs off of it ("Heading Out to the Highway" is brilliant, "Solar Angels" and "Desert Plains" as well), but despite being into more AOR Priest, the other songs made next to no impression on me.

thanks to me buying that boxed set I now own the Ripper albums, might listen to them for a laugh.

"Your head
You will lose it"

O WILL I NOW

Point of Entry might have been my first Priest album, too. But I bought a bunch all at once right after that — Hell Bent For Leather, British Steel, Unleashed In The East and Screaming For Vengeance. They were my absolute favorite band when I was 11-12-13.

I went through a real Stained Class phase in high school. The tape rarely left my Walkman for about a year.

my Priest evolution was weird. since I started with Painkiller, and loved that album, young and newly into more extreme metal me was a bit disappointed that this didn't match their other stuff as much.

However, I pivoted to Defenders of the Faith next, which was as close as you'd get, and loved it immediately. problem was as a teen, I then got the Metal Works compilation, and the 70s stuff didn't work for me as much. I wanted them in full leather, dual harmony, cheese ice-cream headache scream meedly meedly dragon comes in the night metal.

so for a while I talked endlessly about how amazing Priest were and yet like I only had those three releases. I then got Stained Class in college and HATED IT. I said "what the fuck is this old people music" and flung it into the corner of my room. yet I got Sad Wings of Destiny and thought it kicked ass, even from the beginning. because "Victim of Changes" always resonated with me, and it's such an interesting proggier disc, which is what I was into.

Picked up Screaming for Vengeance next year of college and loved it. but didn't get the rest until I was 23.

was in a CD Warehouse and decided to pick up Killing Machine/Hell Bent for Leather, and by then, only a few years later, my tastes had developed a ton. I'd gotten into a bunch of 70s rock and metal over that timeframe, so on first listen I immediately loved all of the stuff that revulsed me as a musically naive teen, in fact, now I wanted to hear them rock in this style way more than I did the Painkiller style.

I think I picked up Sin After Sin next, which was an instant love, relistened to Stained Class (which now I thought was amazing), and then filled in the rest of the discography sans Point of Entry (which I only picked up a few years ago) and Turbo/Ram It Down (which I now only own due to the boxed set)....and of course the Ripper stuff.

didn't actually like Angel of Retribution when it came out. but weirdly at the time...I was still missing a fairly big chunk of their discography!

it just seems weird to me that I talked non-stop about Priest in my early 20s and I hadn't heard most of their albums at the time. whereas Maiden I kinda deep dove into all in one fluid motion.

jesus christ, I love "United" so much: several times, I've been in a perfectly stable frame of mind, and that song has moved me to tears… it is indeed moving, and "take on the World," while I like it, is markedly inferior…

I'm officialy a Turbo lover, such an odd sellout record, all those Roland guitar synths

love that post Neanderthal. I think with a lot of big-catalogue bands we end up carving our own paths, and it's awesome!

indeed. I love bands with big discographies and being in the discovery phase. it's so much fun.

I remember the day I bought Painkiller, weirdly. was on my way to a New Year's Eve party, 1998, senior year of high school, and picked it up from Camelot Music. I remember not wanting to stop driving after two songs, like I think I even took a longer route to get home so I could hear more of it.

I got Sad Wings of Destiny and thought it kicked ass, even from the beginning. because "Victim of Changes" always resonated with me

If the band had their way this would have kicked off side 2! Which is why there's a song called "Prelude" halfway through the album. Also wikipedia tells me the co-producers of this album were behind novelty reggae act Typically Tropical, whose UK novelty hit "Barbados" came out around the same time.

Anyway this album wipes the floor with any of the others, although I can see why they pivoted to the straightforward style as prog metal wouldn't be invented for a while.

Relistening to Screaming as a result of this thread. I agree with Neanderthal, "Pain and Pleasure" is kind of a cut below most of the rest of the album, but when the title track kicks in just after that, it's fuckin' magic.

I was lucky enough to see that tour back in the day. They were hugely entertaining, and pretty much at the peak of their powers.

fucking jealous you got to see that.

the title track is an all time rager.

The opener was Uriah Heep, which I thought was a bit of an odd choice.

they are probably bros from the early days

Uriah Heep also opened for them back in 2019 when I saw them.

so guess they've been friends for a reaaaaaaaaaaaaallly long time

This is a great setlist, which my 17 year old self probably did not fully appreciate.

McNichols Sports Arena, Denver, CO
12.02.82
World Vengeance Tour

The Hellion [played from tape]
Electric Eye
Riding on the Wind
Heading Out to the Highway
Metal Gods
Bloodstone
Breaking the Law
Sinner
Desert Plains
The Ripper
Diamonds & Rust (Joan Baez cover)
Devil's Child
Screaming for Vengeance
You've Got Another Thing Comin'
Victim of Changes
The Green Manalishi (With the Two Prong Crown) (Fleetwood Mac cover)
Hell Bent for Leather

there's not a dull moment in that set. like if you were looking for time to get a beer/pee, maybe you'd choose one of the Top 40 singles if you were real sick of it, but even then you might have to get a little on your pants to get back to your seat in time for the next one.

amusing that they ended with Hell Bent, as that one was often used as an opener across various stages of the 70/80s/90s.

Pretty sure they played "Living After Midnight," even though it's not included on that entry from setlist.fm.

xp Yeah, Hell Bent looks like the standard closer for that tour.

it's funny too, like, they have so many songs that can double as an opener as a closer. so many high intensity bangers that it becomes like "where do you put them", like you're filling out a baseball lineup card.

"Hell Bent" used to be the standard closer because that was when Rob would ride the Harley out from backstage. This was the set list when I saw them in 2008 (with Heaven and Hell, Motörhead, and Testament). I went with my brother — the only concert we've ever gone to together — and he brought his oldest son, who was eight or nine. He fell asleep in his seat toward the end of Priest's set.

Dawn of Creation [tape]
Prophecy
Metal Gods
Eat Me Alive
Between the Hammer and the Anvil
Devil's Child
Breaking the Law
Hell Patrol
Dissident Aggressor
Angel
The Hellion [tape]
Electric Eye
Rock Hard, Ride Free
Painkiller

Encore:
Hell Bent for Leather
The Green Manalishi (With the Two Pronged Crown)
You've Got Another Thing Comin'

Yeah, that was when Rob brought out the Harley. Man, that was fun.

Motörhead was a band I definitely didn't appreciate back in the day. I saw them when they opened for Ozzy on the Diary tour. It didn't help that they sounded like sludge in what was a fairly small venue.

looks like Hell Bent for Leather was mostly used as an opener between 1979-1980 and the Painkiller tour.

(i've listened to so many boots this week..it's been fun)

When I was about 12 to about 15, I had a giant poster of Rob and his Harley hanging up in my bedroom — the pose he was striking was straight out of Scorpio Rising, and it was literally taped to my closet door. I wonder what my mother thought...

what I can't figure out is what was Halford's deal for the reunion tour. dude was in relatively great vocal health, his voice had settled into a deeper baritone but he still had tons of power on the first two Halford solo albums and the live album (like he sang a version of "Riding on the Wind" which was incredible on that one).

so they pull out classics like "Exciter" and also the never-before-played "Hell Patrol", and the motherfucker sings the chorus to BOTH of them down one octave, sapping all intensity out of the song. like I was watching Youtube of the DVD they put out from that tour and dude was just scared of the high notes on a lot of songs.

they did "Hell Patrol" in 2019 and he did do the high notes. granted, he's found other ways to produce those notes, as he can't produce them like he did in 1991 (it's a little more head voice in the head/chest combo than previous)...but it's still coming out and pretty strong for a 75 year old.

I'd have been pretty mad to hear "Exciter" sung like a dude singing the song around a campfire had I paid all that money to see that first reunion tour.

xpost LOL....the raw, unsubtle grimy non-heteronormative sexuality of Priest is one of the best parts.

"Eat Me Alive" is better raw sexual energy than any hair band could come up with.

back to the vocal discussion, he released a second book that I haven't read yet, but I read an excerpt where he said he'd never taken any vocal lessons (not surprisingly, supposedly Dio didn't either, some people just come by it naturally), but it was fascinating to hear him describe how he *thinks* he produced the sound for various songs...like he outright didn't even know himself how he did it! He knew how to do it well enough that he could replicate it consistently, but even he was kind of flummoxed by how he created his signature sound.

meanwhile I've been singing since I was 11, took voice lessons for years, was a voice major at Florida State University for one year, and all of the pedagogy and theory about how to produce sound made me go cross-eyed and stressed out. I decided to change majors. I've since done professional a capella barbershop/caroling gigs, and yet after decades of work, practice, and study I can't do even a fraction of what he did in his prime. I doubt half of the men in the opera program at FSU could either.

like I even managed in my 30s-40s to add basically another octave via chest/head voice through a lot of work and effort and at the end of the day it's still not even close. I don't know how the dude ever did what he did in his prime or even how he does it today at age 75, admittedly in a much reduced capacity.

so they pull out classics like "Exciter" and also the never-before-played "Hell Patrol", and the motherfucker sings the chorus to BOTH of them down one octave, sapping all intensity out of the song. like I was watching Youtube of the DVD they put out from that tour and dude was just scared of the high notes on a lot of songs.

That's interesting. I saw Priest for the first time in 2021 on the 50th anniversary tour, and while I appreciated that Halford was going for just about all the high notes, I thought his occasional dips into lower registers sounded great and wished he would do that more.

oh for sure, there's definitely things *now* where it makes more sense to do that because he has to protect his instrument which is much more frail and it might sound better aesthetically than straining.

in 2004 though, he was in a bit better vocal health.

listening to Angel of Revolution for the first time in over a decade, and got to "Revolution"

did JP intentionally rip off "Mountain Song" here?

"Defenders Of The Faith" is all-time for me.

JAWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW
breakerrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

LOVE BITES! (chakka-chukka-chakka)

A few months ago I saw Andy Edwards talking about Simon Phillips on Sin After Sin, he said he was a game changer for metal drumming and it might have only been a day's work for Phillips. I'm not a big enough Priest or metal fan to track all this stuff, so is this something people talk about often?