5 keepers
keeper avg .454
Album opener "Delivering the Goods"**** starts with a ballsy double-tracked riff, but it's the way in which Rob Halford and the band unite in a ridiculously evocative bludgeoning attack in the chorus that makes the song legendary. "Running Wild"**** is brutal in its "Whole Lotta Love" simplicity and speed; Iron Maiden later copied its powerful riff in "Wicker Man" (2000), but Priest probably got it from somewhere else themselves. And the driving title song**** is clearly the prototype on which "Breaking the Law" (1980) would be based. Word is this is the album that Judas Priest became the band we know and love, as at least these aforementioned songs are early examples of the fast-driving rock that virtually defined the new wave of British heavy metal (NWOBHM to us oldie-metal-heads). Though similar to Thin Lizzy's "Don't Believe A Word" (1976) and not really metal, the riff-y "Rock Forever" also maintains the speedy pace.
Priest does let off the gas a few times, as on the Thin Lizzy meets ZZ Top "Killing Machine," the dance-y "Burnin' Up," and their excellent head-banging cover of Fleetwood Mac's "The Green Manalishi (With the Two-Pronged Crown)"**** (1970). "Evil Fantasies"**** is almost excessively lumbering, but worth hearing for Halford's hilariously lascivious, chuckling delivery of "I wanna get inside your mind." Unfortunately the lightweight, poppy "Evening Star" (is this about a newspaper?) and the plodding "Take On the World" (a corny attempt to copy "We Will Rock You" (1977), later re-copied next album on "United") are annoyingly weak, and worse, both are bafflingly featured on side 1. And though the sad, atmospheric ballad "Before the Dawn" isn't terrible by any stretch, no one wants to hear Judas Priest play around with synths. Ignoring a handful of duds, it's still a ground-breaking metal album, and for my money more consistent than its acclaimed successor British Steel (1980).
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