Judas Priest's Reviews

British Steel

(Average Rating: 8.84 out of 10)

British Steel - Der Kommissar's Definitive Review

(Rated this album with 8 out of 10)
Reviewed by Der Kommissar from america

1980. This year saw the release of several metal albums. The vast majority of these metal albums were debuts from British metal bands, but that wasn't true in JP's case. Even though this was way back in 1980, this was actually Priest's SIXTH album! A year earlier they released Hell Bent For Leather and a year later they would release Point Of Entry. It's phenomenal that any band could have five metal albums out BEFORE the year 1980. Now, let's break this masterpiece down, track by track:

Rapid Fire is an all out hard rock assault that's tough to beat. Enough said. Metal Gods is a hard rocker with a more epic sound and feel to it. Great experiment that paid off. Breaking The Law is a bit overplayed and overrated, but still a decent hard rocker overall. Grinder is probably the weakest track on the album, it's decent but fails to achieve anything out of the ordinary. United is an arena rock anthem with fairly hard verses, but an ultra melodic chorus. Before I heard this song I never thought songs of this type could be so good. You Don't Have To Be Old To Be Wise is an interesting hard rocker in which the band attacks an age old belief. They do a good job of it too! Living After Midnight is a lighter hard rocker that is good, despite being overplayed. The Rage and Steeler seem more like filler tracks than anything, but they do little to derail the rest of the album. Each Judas Priest remaster contains two BONUS TRACKS. The first is an unreleased studio session from circa 1985 entitled Red White And Blue, which is an ultra melodic and soft track. It's not too often you're gonna find JP being this soft, I can promise you that. Grinder (Live) is basically the same thing as the studio version, with a cool spoken intro by Halford. But still, why was the worst track on the album chosen to be represented live?

The Judas Priest remasters are HIGHLY RECOMMENDED to all fans of old heavy metal and hard rock. Another great album in the series is Screaming For Vengeance. Put simply, this is the way hard rock is supposed to sound - hands down.

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