My Amazon Reviews: Judas Priest "Redeemer Of Souls"

Stand tall, Rise up, Stay strong
4 Out Of 5 Stars

Judas Priest last appeared in the form of a metal fever dream: the double disc concept album "Nostradamus." While I happened to love it, some Priest fans were left shaking their heads. There were plenty of good tracks, but where was that one killer anthem? This time, they have nothing to worry about. "Redeemer Of Souls" is Judas Priest back to basics. Twin guitars, thunder drums, and Rob Halford's glorious shriek rising above it all. One of the songs may be titled "Valhalla," but for old fans, this will be nirvana.

You can tell Priest is back to business from the moment Halford sings the first stanza, "welcome to my world of steel." And while the departure of legendary guitarist K.K. Downing may have set fans on edge, his replacement, Richie Faulkner, plays off Glenn Tipton and kick mutual butt. Even so, with all the plundering of their iconic metal sound, you'll still find the soul of a bluesman as "Redeemer" comes to a conclusion. "Beginning of The End" echoes Black Sabbath (whose "13" was a comeback of a similar excellence) with the swamps of ancient mists folding around one of Halford's more subdued performances. Mix that up with the bludgeoning "Metalizer" or the creature feature "Dragonaut," and you'll have a Judas Preist disc that stands toe to toe with their best work.

The deluxe version offers five extra songs, starting with the riff heavy and lead stinging "Snake Bite" and the anthemic "Bring It On" being the best of the five, especially the lead guitar threads needling their way through "Snakebite." There's even a parting gift of "Never Forget," in which the band declare their eternal thanks to the loyal fans who've stuck with the band for 17 albums and multiple decades. They are defenders of the faith, indeed.

     

My Amazon Reviews: Judas Priest "Point Of Entry"

I Wanna Go Hot Rockin'
4 Out Of 5 Stars

Sandwiched as it is between two five star metal classics, "Point Of Entry" suffers from being buffered by "British Steel" and "Screaming for Vengeance." There's plenty of high energy rocking coming of the disc, but it's only average high energy as opposed to classic stuff like "Breaking The Law" and "You've Got Another Thing Coming" from opposite sides of this release. There are a couple of tracks here that just feel like filler, which was rare for a Priest album.

But when the going is good, Rob Halford and crew were still delivering the goods. "Heading Out On The Highway," "Hot Rocking" and "Desert Plains" are as good as Judas Priest gets, but then you're saddled with the iffy stuff, like "Don't Go." There were some other inconsistencies, like the lack of the trademarked twin-guitar attack that is a huge part of the band's signature sound. It's also worth noting that most of the songs clock in at under four minutes, which means the band was given no room to stretch out. Perhaps it is because of the "large quantities of alcohol" the band admits to using in the liner notes or the fact that the songs were written in the studio without some road-testing to see what would or would not work.

Be that as it may, "Point Of Entry" lacks the drive and inspiration of most of the Priest albums in their discography and especially in the fertile period between "Hell Bent for Leather" and "Defenders Of The Faith." What makes Judas Priest so inspirational is simply missing, and there are many other better albums to pick up on.

     

My Amazon Reviews: Judas Priest "Defenders of The Faith"

Songs Of Faith and Devotion
4 Out Of 5 Stars

Coming hot on the heels of their certified metal classic, "Screaming For Vengeance," it would be easy to slag off "Defenders Of The Faith" as sub-par. That would be a fool's errand, because while "Defenders" doesn't have the song for song knockout blows of "Screaming," it still delivers a mighty powerful blow. The twin guitars of Glenn Tipton and KK Downing rip from the opening "Freewheel Burning," while adding sting to a couple of new Priest Classics, "Love Bites" and "Heads Are Gonna Roll."

This was the period in which Judas Priest were at their most aggressive, sometimes outlandishly so. The ode to rough sex, "Eat Me Alive," got the band in hot water with Tipper Gore and her Parents Musical Research Center (remember the PMRC and their obsession with dirty music overall and Prince in particular?) for its particularly graphic narrative. "I'm going to force you at gunpoint to eat me alive" can still rankle those of a sensitive nature, but this came from a band who titled one of their UK albums "Killing Machine." Between the snarling guitars, the double kick drums and Rob Halford's leather skybound howl, subtlety was not their watchword.

"Defenders Of The Faith" also marked the end of a creative run for Priest. After this, they got the jitters from the emerging new wave of metal and - oddly enough - hair bands, too. It lead to the underrated synth heavy "Turbo," an album that took the band several more albums afterwards to recover from. But when you look at the line-up of "Hell Bent For Leather," "British Steel," "Screaming For Vengeance" and then "Defenders of The Faith," it's a creative metal run matched only by the first four Black Sabbath albums.

     

My Amazon Reviews: Judas Priest "Turbo"

Your won't hear me, but you'll fear me
3 Out Of 5 Stars

Probably the most misunderstood of the Judas Priest albums featuring frontman Rob Halford, "Turbo" was 1986 Priest trying to march to the pop metal success if the likes of Def Leppard and Bon Jovi. It also started life as a double album, with half being regular Priest and the other the revised Priest. The record label nixed that idea, and this version of "Turbo" was the end result. Fans did a serious freak out when the synthesized drums and dance beat of "Turbo Lover" opened the album, and the CD soon went platinum all the same, but stalled the momentum of the band for a brief spell.

I have a secret fondness for this CD. Despite the dance leanings, I love "Turbo Lover." It's the mist successful of the album's attempts to meld the twin personalities on "Turbo." For classic Priest, Halford lets loose on the heavy "Rock You Around The World." However, you can't escape that some of the songs here seem confused and schizophonic, like "Wild Nights and Hot Crazy Days," which sounds like just about every hair metal band of the 80's. Purist Priest never sounded generic before, and this time did, as "Parental Guidance" which was just a trendy slap at the rock hating Congressional hearings of that moment.

Still, this is Judas Priest. Even at their most off kilter, they still could kick the poo out of about any other rock band. "Turbo" may be the most average album of their 80's recordings, but it took them till 1990's "Painkiller" to right them back on the metal line. Seriously, I found "Ram It Down" to be a lesser album than "Turbo," so here's to playing with expectations.

     

My Amazon Reviews: Two "Voyeurs"

Who put all this dirt in to my machine?
3 Out Of 4 Stars

One of the odder curios in my collection, "Voyeurs" by Two was Rob Halford taking some time to reinvent himself after exiting Judas Priest. Also coinciding with his coming out as gay, "Voyeurs" was nothing like Halford had done in the past. Teaming up with Nine Inch Nails' Tren Reznor, Mayiln Manson guitarist John 5, and letting Reznor executive produce with a hand from Bob Marlette and Skinny Puppy's Dave Ogilvie, this sounded more techno-metal than his operatic heavy metal howling with Priest. Even though that combination sounds like it should be a total trainwreck, "Voyeurs" works most of the time.

"I Am A Pig" was the lead single, and it sounds more like a NIN song than most anything else on the disc. Halford lowers his voice into a gravelly growl while overblown mechanical rumbles keep the beat. There was a rarely seen video created by porno director Chi Chi LaRue that featured nobody from the band but lots of kinky flesh in an SM dungeon context. If Halford and Reznor wanted to blow away any expectations of Priest fans, this was certainly the way to do it. (The song also wound up on the soundtrack to the 1999 cult horror movie "Idle Hands.") Then there's "Hey Sha La La," which attempts to weld a singalong hook (the title) to the spooky grind. The other noteworthy song is "Stutter Kiss," which uses NIN's typical whisper to a scream vocal style to good effect.

Those are the highlights. "Voyuers" tended to repeat itself about midway in, and not in a beneficial manner. I also found it amusing that this industrial style of metal-making would pop up again on Alice Cooper's "Brutal Planet" about a year later, and there are times here when Halford sounded like The Coop. While Two was definitely trying to sound like their own group and Halford sounded like he was having pretty good time not being the Metal God for 11 songs, apparently few consumers agreed. "Voyeurs" was a commercial stiff and has since developed a cult following among fans of Halford and Reznor (like yours truly), leaving no further opportunities for Two to expand on these ideas.

     

My Amazon Reviews: Judas Priest "The Chosen Few"

Cool Idea, OK Compilation
3 Out Of 5 Stars

This compilation of 17 Judas Priest songs is probably more interesting for its liner notes than the music. Which is pretty amazing, since Judas Priest are one of the top metal groups of all time. However, what sets "The Chosen Few" apart from most collections is the concept. Other hard rockers were invited to select a favorite Priest song and then contribute a brief word or two about why this song, above all the others Judas Priest have recorded, was the choice cut among the hundreds Priest have released.

It makes for some interesting insights. Who would think that David Coverdale of 80's hair band and Randy Blythe of thrash metal band Lamb of God would have something in common? Well, it seems they both have an affinity for Priest's cover of Fleetwood Mac's "The Green Manalishi With The Two Pronged Crown." Geezer Butler of Black Sabbath and Alice Cooper both favor "Living After Midnight." Or who would have thought that one of the more maligned Priest albums, "Turbo," would find a champion in Korn's Jonathan Davis, who liked it because of the synths, not despite them.

Ozzy Osbourne, Gene Simmons, Joe Elliott of Def Leppard and others pull out their fandom hats and pitch in. It makes for some fun reading, as the participants are about as agog at the idea of contributing to a Judas Priest compilation as the rest of us mere mortals. It also helps that some otherwise passed-over songs, like "Dissident Aggressor," "Beyond The Realms of Death" or "Turbo Lover" make the cut. If you're already a fan of Rob Halford's operatic metal yowls or the twin guitar leads that characterize any great Priest selection, then this CD will probably be unnecessary, a collectable at best. However, if you're a newbie into this legendary band's decades long discography, "The Chosen Few" makes for an interesting gateway drug.

     

My Amazon Reviews: Judas Priest "Hellbent For Leather"

Hell bent and heaven sent
4 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.