Hell bent and heaven sent4 Out Of 5 Stars
As each Judas Priest album became more and more successful,the band felt the need to top itself with each release. This album, "Hellbent for Leather," was a significant jump from "Stained Class." It also advance the groups image as leather clad bad boys playing the heaviest guitar rock out of England. As the title song put it the band was in a take no prisoners mode.
The album kicks off with a sexual innuendo "Delivering the Goods." Rob Halford delivers the song with grunts and a low-key growl. That doesn't mean he hasn't given up his operatic howl, evident on "Evening Star" and "Before the Dawn." "Before the Dawn" also showed the versatility of the band. Played as the acoustic set piece, it slips in the middle as a curio along with the band's cover version of Fleetwood Mac's "The Green Manalishi with the Two Pronged Crown."it joins the ranks of great Judas Priest cover songs like "Diamonds and Rust." They may have been a hard-core heavy metal, but they had visions outside the format.
"Hellbent for Leather" contains a pair of classic Priest songs. Both the title song and "Living After Midnight" preserved the image of the band not just leather clad rockers, but knowledgeable about the way with a hook. By their next album, the five-star rated "British Steel," they would have that mastered. But for the moment, "Hellbent for Leather" added to the growing mythology of this great rock band.
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