Judas Priest's Reviews

Painkiller

The first Power Metal album

1. It signals the birth of German Power Metal, which incorporates British and American metal stylings, with PM bands such as Primal Fear, Gamma Ray, and Helloween all drawing influence from this album.

2. Not long after it was finished, Rob Halford took an 11 year sabbatical from Priest. He must have really liked this style though, because he favored it on 2 solo albums.

But it's best to think of it in a third way: This is the album you want to play when you REALLY want to totally shred your stereo. At the time this album was being made, Priest knew that they were losing ground to Guns N Roses and Metallica, so they just decided to kick ass and take names. The first half is Priest at their fastest and furious, the second half is a little slower but still packs quite a punch (even the ballad). Rob shows some pretty impressive range too, going from his trademark banshee wail to a very dark, brooding tone for a spoken passage on Nightcrawler(Happy nightmares kids!) Scott Travis pounds on the drums as if he had Thor's hammer, inspiring Glenn Tipton and Ken Downing to come up with some of their most ferocious twin axe attacks since Hell Bent For Leather. If your fellow metalheads dismiss Judas Priest as "more of an 80s rock band" then show them this one and prove them wrong.

A final recommendation: playing this one back to back with Halford's Resurrection and Primal Fear's Black Sun is a good way to gear up for reunited Priest's next album.

Let the moshing begin!!

Buy this album on Amazon at $10.99