3 keepers
keeper avg .300
"Heading Out to the Highway"****, lead-off track on Judas Priest's follow-up to their most successful album to date, ticks all the boxes for a metal classic: a great opening riff that's both edgy and melodic, catchy chorus, and concluded with Rob Halford's soaring "..a chance before I fall." Word is this is the album Priest went all poppy. Though they went pretty hard in that direction with "Living After Midnight" (1980), more tracks on "Point of Entry" eschew aggressive speed for stadium sing-along choruses and middling tempos, including "Don't Go," the pseudo-reggae "Turning Circles," the Kiss-like "All the Way," and the Foreigner-like "Troubleshooter."
Only a handful of tracks break from this new formula; "Hot Rockin'"**** speeds out of the gate like a happier "Breakin' the Law"****, while the dramatic but driving "Desert Plains"**** rocks forcefully in the vein of (their cover of Fleetwood Mac's) "The Green Manalishi..." (1979). And the staccato beat of the poppy "On the Run" seems to predict Brit-pop. Though the album's second side is relatively blah by comparison, the only real dud is "You Say Yes," a good riff ruined by annoying, shrill chorus and dull "breakdown." Though I think totally dismissing the album as "radio-friendly" is over-doing it a bit, when it comes to shifting focus away from the speed-metal barn-burners the haters do have a point.
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