JUDAS PRIEST - Defenders Of The Faith: Special 30th Anniversary Deluxe Edition

April 1, 2015, 8 years ago

(Sony)

Martin Popoff

Rating: 8.0

review heavy metal rarities judas priest

JUDAS PRIEST - Defenders Of The Faith: Special 30th Anniversary Deluxe Edition

Hard to believe it’s been 3(1) years since Priest unleashed this beast of a record on a heavy metal world about to go hair, and with Scorpions wilting toward the same conclusion with Love At First Sting. No, Priest underscored the correction that was Screaming over the Priest-lite of Point Of Entry by crafting a darker Screaming, and Defenders Of The Faith was born howling. There’s no real help brought to the highly processed production values of the record for this reissue, but there’s a nice booklet, a capable Bryan Reesman essay, some quality live shots, and most pertinently a full-on complete live show from the correct tour, the band captured live at Long Beach Arena in 1984. What’s cool is that every song from the new album is played, with only “Eat Me Alive” left off. As well, the sound is full, bright, bold, aggressive and less mechanical than the studio album (despite the imitated imagination of Dave Holland).

Rob is at his thespian best, ducking the odd thing, but also shrieking and emoting, while we really get to see K.K. and Glenn at their contrasted best, as is evidenced on “The Sentinel”. Crazy that both “Heavy Duty” and the title track are here, but that’s a cool thing for the fans, Sony sticking on a live album crammed full of period songs that are sure to be replaced as time grinds on and the guys press turbo (which slows the car, hmm). Other deep tracks, I suppose, would be “Sinner” and “Desert Plains”, both played amusingly tight and punky, providing what is actually the choice two spots of fresh on this 31 song trawl. All told, the impression one gets is of a Priest digging in their heels, gone back to NWOBHM-heavy, but with their commercial arena rock twist, necessarily unknowing that the golden age of metal that would live out the ‘80s would be more of a hair metal age. “A fine bunch of heavy metal maniacs” is what Rob lustily calls his charges, like a pirate, and for this brief period, the sun-dappled spring of 1984, heavy metal was still relatively pure, as evidenced by Priest and Ozzy and Accept and Ronnie and newcomers like Metallica.



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