Almost everyone here will have heard more Judas Priest than I have. I only relatively recently heard any of their albums, and although I know of course the singles --- "Living after midnight", "Breaking the law", "United", "You got another thing coming" and so on --- I've never been a fan. And yet they're one of the oldest and most respected metal bands in history, so perhaps it's time I took off my biased goggles and got to grips with their music. Which is why they are this year's
So let's jump right in and check out their first album, released a staggering forty-one years ago.
Rocka rolla (1974)
Very blues-edged rock kicks off the debut album, reminds me of ZZ and Led Zep with touches of Purple, which is not too surprising as they would have been coming up as those bands were releasing some of their seminal albums and taking control over heavy rock music at the time. Bit of a stomper, good guitar work but nothing terribly special really to be fair. Even Rob Halford is still trying to find his voice, as here he's a mix of Plant and Gillan. You can certainly hear the power in his vocal chords though, which would come screaming to the fore in later years, but right now he sounds like a poor copy of the big heavy rock vocalists of the time. The song is okay, a bit dull with no real identity though, but the title track when it hits next has a least a lot more bite about the guitars. Again though it's pretty basic blues rock and I don't find it stands out in any real way.
What does stand out, and is different, with its progressive overtones, is a suite of three songs on the album that comes next, kicking off with “Winter”, which has a dark, slow, crushing, very Sabbath vibe, right down to the guitar riff from K.K. Downing, very short though and runs into “Deep freeze”, which seems to be mostly that crushing guitar riff played through as an instrumental passage .. no it isn't. Most of it, yes, but here comes Halford at the end as it piles into the longest of its sections, “Winter retreat”, with a big feedback guitar taking centre stage and kind of copying Zep's “Whole lotta love” I must admit, then of all things a soft mellow acoustic guitar takes the final section. Sort of Floydy in its way. Nice vocal harmonies and some smooth synthesiser from Tipton too. “Cheater” then gets everything rocking again with a big angry guitar chugging along and the Zep blues vibe firmly back in place. There is some harmonica on it though, but then again that only reinforces the Zep comparison.
“Never satisfied” is a decent rock song, but again there's nothing terribly original or indeed memorable about it. It's a bit heavier than some of the tracks that have gone before, or to be more accurate, has a crunchier heaviness about it, but that's about all. Surprisingly then, “Run of the mill” is anything but, with a progressive rock/blues hybrid thing going, and indeed it's the epic on the album, at over eight minutes long. Certainly the standout for me, with its slow, almost doomy feel and some fine work from K.K. Downing, not to mention a pretty excellent and passionate vocal from Halford. Definitely the most progressive rock of the tracks here, with some fine drumming from John Hinch, whose debut and swansong at once this album would be. Halford goes into full Gillan mode near the end, proving he has the vocal chops that would be able to stand toe-to-toe with the best in metal over the decades.
There's a sweet little bass line to open “Dying to meet you” before the guitar growls through and takes control, then tones right down into an almost acoustic style while Halford sings almost as if in the distance, more blues evident in this song, which seemed like it was going to be a big power cruncher but has so far slipped into a soft, relaxed groove. There's a big sliding guitar then and the beat kicks up, but I believe this is another track called “Hero, hero”. It gallops along nicely, but my god the vocals are poor here! I can hardly hear Halford, and that's not something you normally can say about the man; love him or loathe him, he is loud! But here he's almost inaudible. Song's decent though, and to be fair there isn't much in the way of vocals really; it survives on Downing's superb fretwork that drives the whole thing. That just leaves an instrumental for the closer, a short track called “Caviar and meths”, which I'm told is cut down from a fourteen-minute version! Here though it's just a slowly rising guitar line and percussion; a nice little guitar passage that forms a coda to the album.
TRACKLISTING AND RATINGS
1. One for the road
2. Rocka rolla
3. Winter
4. Deep freeze
5. Winter retreat
6. Cheater
7. Never satisfied
8. Run of the mill
9. Dying to meet you/Hero, hero
10. Caviar and meths
I can see why this album sold so poorly its first time out, and why, for a time, Judas Priest must have wondered if they might try some other career or genre? It just didn't take off for them right away, and their label didn't seem to be interested (surprise, surprise!), and when their second album performed as badly the band parted company with Gull and signed to CBS, and history was made. But I have to admit, if I had heard this in 1974 (well, I would have been eleven at the time, so maybe not) I would not have been impressed. It would be a massive stretch to call this metal of any stripe, and there is nothing really there to indicate that not only would Judas Priest survive and thrive, but that they would become one of the biggest, most influential and revered and longest-lived metal bands in the world.
Before that though, there was another three years of obscurity, living life on the breadline and struggling to make their mark before their third album would finally catapult them into the spotlight and put them on the stage as heavy metal superstars, where they have remained ever since.