CD Odyssey Disc 195: Judas Priest

Well, the internet appears down, so I’m actually writing this review in Word to transfer to the blog later. Of course, for you the transition will be seamless – the powers of technology.

This time around finds us back with the artist that got the whole thing going at Disc #1.

Disc 195 is...Stained Class

Artist: Judas Priest

Year of Release: 1978

What’s Up With The Cover?: I’m not entirely sure. I think it is a metal headed man with a glass rod through his skull. That’s my best guess anyway.

How I Came To Know It: In the last few years I’ve been drilling through most of Judas Priest’s early work, and this is just another one of those. This is their 4th studio album.

How It Stacks Up: I have ten Priest albums. While I liked “Stained Class” it was one of the weaker albums – I’d put it somewhere between 7th and 9th depending on my mood.

Rating: 3 stars.

“Stained Class” is another one of Judas Priest’s albums where you marvel just how heavy they are for such an early album. It is only 1978, but this sound will carry forward through the eighties with ever increasing popularity. Priest is one of the originals.

I found “Stained Class” a little uneven in places, although it definitely has its defining moments. Among these is the high pitched guitar riff on the opening track, “Exciter”. This song also features vintage over-the-top lyrics from Halford:

“Racin’ cross the heavens
Straight into the dawn
Looking like a comet
Slicing through the morn
Scorching the horizon
Blazing to the land
Now he’s here among us
The age of fire’s at hand.”

It seems to be a song about a meteorite crashing into the earth. If you’re not sure how that qualifies as ‘exciting’ you wouldn’t be alone. I’ll just say in the context of the music, it works.

Other standouts are a beefed up remake of Spooky Tooth’s “Better By You, Better Than Me” which I think is actually superior to the original, and “Beyond the Realms of Death” – a song about a man who withdraws his consciousness from the world and lets his body waste away and die. This song has slow stanzas, punctuated by a chorus that rocks out. For a song that is so internal in its content, it takes on an epic quality in the hands of Judas Priest. "Beyond the Realms of Death" reminded me of fellow British metalheads (and eternal foils for Judas Priest) Iron Maiden. This is a good thing.

This is one of the Judas Priest remasters, and so has the obligatory ‘bonus tracks.’ The two on this album are an old song entitled “Fire Burns Below” which is passable but nothing to be in awe of, and a live version of “Better By You, Better Than Me” which is OK, but had me preferring the studio version.

Overall this album is good, and even flashes greatness, but I’m going to stick to being a hard marker, and go with three stars.

Best tracks: Exciter, Better By You Better Than Me, Beyond the Realms of Death.