(Rated this album with 8 out of 10) Reviewed by
richard recchia
from HI, NY
SAD WINGS OF DESTINY really set the stage for later J.P. al- bums. It's much more sinister and evil than their debut album and much heavier. The tempos are faster and the production is much better and much more full and bass heavy. And the electric gui- tars are much more metallic. The playing is quite sloppy at times, especially the drumming; ALAN MOORE was probably J.P.,s worst drummer. ROB HALFORD's voice sounded horrible on this and at least two songs here(VICTIM OF CHANGES especially) sound MUCH better on UNLEASHED IN THE EAST. THE RIPPER has never been one of my favorite J.P. songs and ISLAND OF DOMINATION tries to be evil, but ends up sounding rather silly. All this aside, the rest of SAD WINGS is great. The songs are just superb!! EPITAPH is like no other J.P. song; it's just piano and vocals, yet the lyrics are very much in the evil and mysterioso JP style. DREAMER DE- CIEVER starts out mellow, but gets heavier as it goes along and has HALFORD hitting some very low notes(rather uncomfortably) and also hitting some unbelievably high notes. A classic song, it segues right into the album's fastest and heaviest song, the riff rocker DECIEVER. PRELUDE was a song I was unfamiliar with until I bought the cd version of SAD; it's a very classical sounding instrumental starting out with just piano and drums. TYRANT is my all time favorite JP song; tis a very heavy hard rock song( very prog metal-like) with one of JP's coolest guitar riffs and some great guitar solos. While other 70's metal bands were becoming less evil and sinister, JP were becoming MORE evil and sinister. SAD WINGS is one of JP'S best albums, despite it's flaws and a terrific prog metal album!
