(Rated this album with 2 out of 10) Reviewed by
Terrence Reardon
from Ladson, SC(formerly Whitman, MA) USA
Judas Priest's Painkiller, released in 1990, was the worst Priest album I ever heard. When I first heard the title cut on the radio in late 1990, I thought I was listening to an album by Slayer. Scott Travis' drumming was subpar at best and tried too hard to be like Slayer's drummer, Priest were never known for lightning double-bass drumming. Plus the band just were not the Priest that I liked(everything from Stained Class to Ram it Down(yes, I said Ram it Down) and sounded very uninspired on this album. No wonder this album flopped when it first came out, the songs were awful. Hearing a whole album of Rob Halford singing in falsetto got on the nerves rather quickly. On the older albums, he sang normal and would have maybe a song or two in a high octave but every song with nothing but high shrieks just got boring after awhile. Night Crawler and A Touch of Evil were terrible songs too. Just buy any Priest album from 1978 to 1988 instead and leave Painkiller in the cheap bin. I hope the new Priest album is way better and Scott doesn't play like the dude from Slayer.
