CD Odyssey Disc 461: Judas Priest

Yesterday I spent the day running errands and listening to this album the old fashioned way; in my car at high volume.  Errands included buying vacuum cleaner bags, dropping off some documents for my strata and doing some banking.  It would seem that adulthood has snuck up on me.

Fortunately, I spent today putting some themed playlists together and generally goofing off.  Thank goodness there will always be music to keep me young.

Disc 461 is… Sad Wings of Destiny

Artist: Judas Priest

Year of Release: 1976

What’s up with the Cover?  This is one of my favourite album covers in all of my collection; certainly top five in terms of heavy metal albums.  An angel falls into hell, seemingly weighed down by that Judas Priest necklace it is wearing.  Unlike the INXS album cover I just reviewed, if I were fifteen I would totally put this poster on my wall.  The colours even match my bedroom now.  Now how to convince Sheila this is a good idea…

How I Came To Know It:  I’ve been a Judas Priest fan since I was a teenager, but only in the last few years did my interest rekindle, largely at the urging of my buddy Ross.  This particular album I bought a bit later, maybe in the last three or four years, and it is just me drilling through their earlier records.

How It Stacks Up:  I have twelve Judas Priest albums.  “Sad Wings of Destiny” is pretty awesome but the competition is fierce at the top.  I’ll put this one about 7^th or 8^th best, depending on my mood.

Rating:  3 stars

Listening to early Judas Priest I am always impressed with how early they discovered the sound that later would become synonymous with eighties metal.  “Sad Wings of Destiny” dates back to 1976, and is a pioneer and harbinger of the heavy that would come to dominate the genre in later years.

At the same time, there are prog and even folk elements mixed in with the heavy, not unlike “Rocka Rolla,” (reviewed way back at Disc 41). I like the presence of both of these other influences, and I think they add an interesting range to the music.

The first track, “Victim of Changes” covers it all in one song.  It starts with a heavy metal riff that would’ve been massive ten years later, but in 1976 must have been like a bolt of thunder thrown by an angry god.  Midway through the song it shifts to a slower, folk-inspired song that sounds a little like Jethro Tull on steroids, before returning to the opening riff to close on a high note.

The rest of the record is good, but it never quite measures up to the greatness of “Victim of Changes.”  “The Ripper” is an up-tempo ditty about Jack the Ripper, told from the killer’s perspective, and has some fine guitar work soaring through it.  Rob Halford’s vocals are tempered down a bit into a more traditional staccato rock delivery, which lets the guitars speak.

The album then descends into a bit of a prog feel, with a series of songs (“Dreamer Deceiver”, “Deceiver”, “Prelude”) that seems to want to build a larger story but doesn’t quite take off.  It reminds me a bit of Blue Oyster Cult’s 1974 album “Secret Treaties” in that it is like half the album is held together by a concept, but the other half is populated with singles and one-offs.  “Secret Treaties” inherent greatness buoys this internal conflict much better, however, and on “Sad Wings of Destiny” I feel like the tension pulls the record apart in places, rather than helping drive it forward.

I do like Priest making an effort to sing about the wild and wacky things that populate hard rock in the seventies and eighties; mythical evil overlords, infernal beasts and historical killers.  In particular, I like “Tyrant” which sounds like something Blue Oyster Cult would’ve recorded on their first few albums.  This song also features some fine guitar riffs and solos – the dual leads of Glenn Tipton and K.K. Downing has always been a Priest strong suit.

The energy of the album is pulled down by the two interlude pieces, “Prelude” and “Epitaph” where Priest comes off as trying to match Queen’s signature sound and falling short.  However, that isn’t to say there isn’t energy.  Halford’s voice can put chills up the spine of a corpse, and apart from these two tracks the album is visceral and powerful.

This is a good album, and it doesn’t receive the credit it deserves from the mainstream. It is later overshadowed by some truly great albums from Judas Priest, but it holds its own and is as good as anything coming out of the hard rock scene in the mid-seventies, and that is saying something.

Best tracks:  Victim of Changes, The Ripper, Tyrant