(Rated this album with 10 out of 10) Reviewed by
A music fan
from NY
This is, without a doubt, the most underrated of all Priests releases. Until Painkiller many years later, this and British Steel were by far the heaviest Priest albums. The common critical take on Defenders was that it was a letdown after Screaming. Nonsense. It was a commercial letdown because the popsters didn't like it as well. There are no "Take these chains Off" or "Fever" travesties to shame this mighty album. It just plain smokes from front to back. I don't know what the previous reviewer was smoking, calling this "the first bad priest album". Perhaps it doesn't quite live up to the "searing intensity" of such brutal classics as Point Of Entry and Rocka Rolla, (Sarcasm in extremis here), but any headbanger will be delighted with the far faster and heavier tracks Freewheel Burning, Eat me alive, and Jawbreaker. I must sadly concur about the remastering though. This wasn't taken from a better 2-track than the other, they just eq'd the bass to hilariously muddy levels. That said, this is better than Screaming for Vengeance, it just didn't sell as well to the 14 year old girls, and isn't that a good thing?
