Best Judas Priest Album

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