February 12, 2022 by A.S. Van Dorston

The metal gods enter the 80s hard and fast at their second of three peaks. They need to be in the R&R HOF.

Aside from being freaked out by the first three Black Sabbath albums when I was eight, Rush’s 2112 and a few Led Zeppelin albums, my first exposure to full-on heavy metal was Judas Priest’s British Steel (1980). I liked it, but not enough to buy it. I was definitely primed for metal, as “Sheer Heart Attack” was one of my favorite Queen tracks. It wasn’t until I got obsessed with Iron Maiden that I circled back to Priest, and was super pleased with the twin guitar intro to their latest album, “The Hellion,” leading into “Electric Eye.” That sealed it — I wasn’t just a Maiden fan, I loved metal. And I hadn’t even heard their legendary Sad Wings Of Destiny (1976), their best album Stained Class (1978), let alone the first two Maiden albums, Rainbow’s Rising (1976) or Sabbath’s Heaven And Hell (1980). Do you ever wish you could mail some albums to yourself back in time? No matter, better late than never.

Thanks to the hits “Breaking The Law” and “Living After Midnight,” British Steel was their first big crossover album, while Point Of Entry (1981) was considered a misstep. In retrospect, it’s pretty interesting, sleek hard rock, kind of a precursor to what ZZ Top would do. Plus it didn’t have anything as remotely horrible as “United.” Screaming For Vengeance was definitely a comeback in every way, their best and hardest since Stained Class, influential production, and another chart hit with “You’ve Got Another Thing Comin’.” While Rob Halford’s voice is one of the best in metal, I never loved it like I did Bruce Dickinson’s. But it’s like an impressively sharp axe — you don’t have to love it to respect it, and get the job done. It takes a shriek like Halford’s to cut through the metal din of dual guitars of K.K. Downing and Glenn Tipton. “Riding On The Wind” and “Bloodstone” are barnburners that keep the heat that was generated on “Electric Eye,” while things are turned down to smoulder on “(Take These) Chains,” which takes what they learned from experimenting with more spare, hard rock atmospherics on the previous album, and distills into a strong track, with a sound that will become much more ubiquitous as the decade progresses.

The title track is another highlight, the super fast shredding proving in hindsight to be extremely influential on speed metal and thrash that came just around the corner. Probably the least popular songs on the album are “Pain and Pleasure” and “Fever.” To their credit, they’re not bad at all, and I particularly like the latter, with Halford doing sleazy/sexy time and pulling it off. The epic 7:12 power ballad “Prisoner of Your Eyes” is a treat that was added to the expanded CD reissue in 2001. There’s no reason it shouldn’t have been included in the first place, other than for a while they were pretty mercenary about keeping albums under 40 minutes, probably because cramming more compromised the sound quality on vinyl albums.

Judas Priest had many ups and downs in their long career, but incredibly, they were still in an upswing, with Defenders of the Faith (1984) arguably even better than Vengeance. After ticking some fans off with experiments with synths and keytars on Turbo (1986), they came back once again with the ferocious Painkiller (1990) that outmatched many of the younger more extreme bands. Considering they created, then perfected heavy metal, why the fucking fuck are they not yet in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame?? They’re on the ballot again this year, so vote!