The year is 1991 and it has been 17 years since the release of their debut album "Rocka Rolla" and now once again they are back again with Rob Halford as frontman with "Painkiller". "Brittish steel", "Point of entry" and "Defender of faith" were albums that were released in the early 80s and are still today considered by a lot if people to be on of the best heavy-metal albums out to date. Their two latest albums before this one were not as successful as those and now the band really needs a killer album to increase the falling popularity of Judas Priest. Is this album up for the job? The answer is simply YES!!
The album starts with the titletrack and it sounds better than anything they ever done before! This track is fastpaced, very aggressive and Rob does a hell of a job on the vocals, the first solo is absolutely brilliant ... "THIS IS THE PAINKILLER...AAAAAAAHHHH!!". This is the perfect song to listen to when you are in a bad mood. The next "Hell patrol" is also a great song, less aggressive and not that fast tempo as on "Painkiller", but the chorus is indeed very catchy. Definately a very good track too, but not as good as "All guns blazing" which comes after it. Once again we'll hear a very aggressive, fastpaced and heavy track with a unforgettable melody. "Leather Rebel" is the next on the list and unfortunately this one just doesn't seem to keep the great standard as the 3 first songs, it reminds a little bit of "Hell patrol" but not as catchy as that one. Fortunately the next song is another true gem, "Metal Meltdown", a very fastpaced song that will slow down to the unforgettable chorus that will stay in your mind forever "Here comes the Metal Meltdown, run for lives, can't stop the Metal Meltdown no-one survives", a totally awsome track!!! The next track is also fast but unforgettable track with a which is named Night Crawler. This track is driven by great doublebass and a very catchy main guitartheme, Rob sings mostly with a very highpitched voice on this track. Now comes "Between the hammer and the anvil" which also a good track, but somehow it doesn't seem to have a spirit of it's own, it just sounds like "one of those painkiller tracks" and for some reason won't enter your mind as deep as most other songs on this album. Now we heard about 40 minutes of fastpaced heavymetal, so now it might be time to slow down a bit. "A touch of evil" could almost be considered as a ballad on this album, after having been listening to the previous songs on this album. The track moves in a quite slow pace, but is still very heavy, the chorus is also unforgettable "In the night come to me, you know I can't resist a touch of evil...". The next track "Battlehymn" is just a short guitarintro to "One shot at glory" which ends the album with dignity. This track is a quite typical Judas Priest song with a nice melody and not as fast as most of the other songs on this album.
This album is DEFINATELY worth buying. I've had this album for many years now and I still now and then listen to it. I must admit that I think this the best album Judas Priest done, since I like this more aggressive and fastpaced style more than their traditional brittish style of heavymetal.
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Oh wow I love Judas Priest. I don't very often listen to this particular album because of what you pointed out - the songs are very similar. Good review though!
drunkenabby007 09.09.2002 17:57
Close to being a VH, but I felt there needed to be a little more info on each track. Also, break up the op a bit by writing about each song in a new paragraph. Hope this helps! Abby xxx
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