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Judas Priest: British steel
07/05/10 || Altmer
Judas Priest can be a very, very boring band. Then again, I have to admit, I am not the biggest Judas Priest fan and only own a few albums – this one being one of them. Most of what the Priest has released that I have heard, I have liked – but not everything, and this 1980 album is one album that I never really got into. I don’t know why that is – some of the tracks on this ain’t bad at all, like “Rapid fire”, but most of it seems so pedestrian in comparison to their later albums. And for a band that has legendary status in the scene, there’s always gotta be a few albums that are below the norm.
British Steel may have a very metal title, but it’s what we call “filler” that makes up half of this album, which is its biggest problem. It’s got a few hits on it that every fan should love (“Breaking the law”, “Rapid fire”, “Living after Midnight”) but there’s more boring stuff on here like “United” or “The Rage”. Overall, it’s completely uneven across the board. Even anthemic songs like “Metal gods” do entirely nothing for me, last-mentioned song being the precursor to what we would nowadays call “the album plodder”. It’s just too slow. In fact, that may be a problem with this album in general – it feels like the tempo is just 5 bpm too slow. It feels like the songs are just a tidbit too slow to actually go anywhere.
On another note, it seems that the catchy bits are too forced to be catchy. It just doesn’t seem genuine at all and that’s what makes this album mediocre compared to the likes of “Painkiller” or “Screaming for vengeance”. It feels like there’s something true, something fiery lacking from the Priest’s performance on this album, even though it’s all solid instrumentally. It’s like someone removed the songwriting fire from under their asses and replaced it with “generic 80s heavy metal songs for the crowd” fire. This is in layman’s terms known as “boring music”. You don’t want to listen to solid yet unimaginative and boring music, do you? I don’t. And it’s why I don’t like this.
Most other things that the Priest are known for are still here – Halford’s vocals, the double-edged sexually inspired lyrics, the typical old-school hard rock-ish guitar riffs. Another thing that is missing too much for me on this album is those twin guitar leads that Tipton and Downing seemed to have perfected – there isn’t enough of that solo-y goodness going on for me to be completely satisfied. And when there is, like on “Grinder”, it’s not memorable enough for me to actually care about it. This album is mediocre like that, all throughout. It’s like Priest released this album on cruise control, putting just enough good bits in there to tide the fan over until they were inspired to write a better album.
In fact, I think uninspired may be the best way to characterise this album – it is just not powerful or characteristic enough for me to really do anything. It sort of exists in a vacuum – it was written, it was released, and there are songs on it, but none of the songs really feel like you have to re-hear them, with the exception of homo-metal hit deluxe “Livin’ after Midnight”. Only Halford comes across as being totally into it, which may just be because that man has a fantastic set of pipes. He seems to be the only standout on something like “United”, which seems to mix their trademark sound with a Queenish chorus, only bad. This is just not good.
In short, if you are thinking of delving into the Priest catalogue, you would do well to make this purchase at a later date. It was my second Priest album, and I’ve only got “Screaming” since, and it’s deterred me from making any future purchases. The band may be legendary, and they are a pretty strong live act, but this album is NOT the shit, yo momma’s boobies, Luis Suarez, or the bees knees, or whatever you fags jerk off to in your spare time. If you really want to homo along to 80s Priest, get “Screaming for Vengeance” instead – it’s a much more solid album than this utter borefest.
- Information
- Released: 1980
- Label: Columbia Records
- Website: www.judaspriest.com
- Band
- Rob Halford: vocals
- KK Downing: guitars
- Glenn Tipton: guitars
- Ian Hill: bass
- Dave Holland: drums
- Tracklist
- 01. Rapid Fire
- 02. Metal Gods
- 03. Breaking the Law
- 04. Grinder
- 05. United
- 06. You Don’t Have To Be Old To Be Wise
- 07. Living After Midnight
- 08. The Rage
- 09. Steeler
- 10. Red, White and Blue
- 11. Grinder (live)
