Book Review: Judas Priest: Album by Album by Martin Popoff

Disclosure: I received a review copy from the publisher, Quarto, in exchange for my honest opinion.

Judas Priest are admittedly a classic rock band that I haven’t gotten into as much as others and if you know me well, I’m sure you’re confused. It’s a hard rock band with a gay frontman, isn’t that the most Angie thing to listen to? I’ve listened to some of their songs and I know who they are, I’m not clueless. I first heard their name when I was a teenager thanks to the South Park episode “Christian Rock Hard” where Stan, Kyle, and Kenny get inspiration for their band Moop by torrenting music from various rock bands. I’m also a big fan of the show Beavis and Butthead and Beavis and Butthead famously sing “Breaking the law” in the show. So I’m writing this review from a more casual listener point of view, not a superfan point of view, but both are important perspectives to listen to when reading book reviews.

Sometimes getting into a rock band can be intimidating and you’re wondering where to start. Well, that’s what Martin Popoff’s Album By Album series is for. I’ve previously reviewed his Iron Maiden: Album By Album book and I’ve enjoyed that one, so why not use this as an opportunity for an education on Judas Priest? Let’s crack open the book and get learning about this trailblazing heavy metal band.

As you can expect, this is a book by a prolific classic rock journalist and author so you’re in good hands here. This is not his first rodeo writing about Judas Priest, as he’s written four books about Judas Priest prior to this one. What makes this one interesting and not just any other book is that it’s focused on the discography and he’s had a lot of interesting conversations with fellow Judas Priest fans, who have collaborated with him on the book. In the intro, Martin Popoff describes Judas Priest as a band who are “operating so far ahead of anybody else objectively speaking”. And when you think about when they released their first album, the year was 1974. Musically, what was in the charts then? Glam rock and disco was soon to take over. Certainly not hard rock or heavy metal, even if that’s memorable thanks to time being a filter and heavy metal fans being passionate. Martin Popoff’s story of how he got into Judas Priest is quite interesting. Like Genesis, they’ve got a biblical name and you might be expecting some Christian rock with a name like that, which is why he called it “taking a chance”. For Judas Priest, there were some more Christian-ish signifiers like their gothic aesthetic with the calligraphy-style font that looks like it’s straight out of an old newspaper and the Sad Wings of Destiny cover looking all fire and brimstone with an angel surrounded by death and flames. Only after the fact did he find out that this was their sophomore album.

I open the book to the first chapter, about their 1974 debut Rocka Rolla and I see Budgie mentioned! I’m sold! I love them! Not only that, but they were compared to Rush’s Caress of Steel era, with their “Winter” suite (“Winter/Deep Freeze/Winter Retreat“) and “Run of the Mill” (this one gives me Deep Purple “Child In Time” vibes), another band I love! Much like a lot of TV shows that are a slow burn to get into, your patience will be rewarded in their future albums, with better material to be found. In this album, you hear a band with potential to be “Metal Gods”. Fellow West Midlands heavy metal pioneers Black Sabbath may have got there first with them releasing ahead of their time albums since the start of the 70s, but Judas Priest were in that next wave of heavy metal. Like Black Sabbath, they had Rodger Bain produce this album. What makes this album interesting is that while Rob Halford is the lead singer, their original frontman Al Atkins had a lot of influence with him having songwriting credits on a few of the songs. Lyrics were mainly K.K. Downing’s. At this point, the band hadn’t found themselves yet, and they looked more hippie-ish rather than leather.

Like a lot of rock bands, there were some lineup changes and you see this in Judas Priest with Alan Moore replacing John Hinch. They went with different producers, with the band co-producing the album with Jeffrey Calvert and Max West. These first two albums had not charted at the time of release. Parallels are drawn between Judas Priest, Uriah Heel, Deep Purple, and a bit of Queen too, and I can really hear it.

Their third album Sin After Sin was produced by Roger Glover of Deep Purple – they were on hiatus at this time. The band make a big step forward with this album being released on a major label, CBS Records. Their first two albums were released on indie label Gull Records. They used a session drummer on this album, Simon Phillips. LGBT rock historians will appreciate the coming out of sorts in the song “Raw Deal”. Decades before Lady Gaga sang about her bisexuality in “Poker Face” and Chappell Roan sang about her lesbian identity in “Good Luck Babe”, Rob Halford sang about going to a gay bar the opening lyrics “I made The Spike about nine o’clock on a Saturday. All eyes hit me as I walked into the bar. Them steel and leather guys were fooling with the denim dudes”. He didn’t come out as gay until the 90s. 

Their fourth album Stained Class was yet another album with a new drummer, Les Banks, who would stay with the band until 1979. This is the first album with the band’s classic logo on the cover. The opener is the speed/thrash metal “Exciter” and the highlight of the album is the nearly 7-minute long “Beyond the Realms of Death”, a fan favourite. This album would later become the subject of controversy, when in 1990, the family of a teenage suicide victim accused Judas Priest of encouraging a suicide pact with supposed subliminal messages in a song that they didn’t even write, it was a cover of Spooky Tooth’s “Better by You, Better than Me”. They were moving in a heavy metal direction, no ballads here, and the album cover, while it’s giving more Kraftwerk, it has a metallic look. Fun fact: the album came out the same day as Van Halen’s debut. 

Closing off the decade is an album with two names, depending on where you live. North Americans know it as Hell Bent For Leather, while others know it as Killing Machine. North Americans were treated o a cover of Peter Green era Fleetwood Mac’s “The Green Manalishi”. I like their covers of other bands’ songs, as Judas Priest always make it theirs. That’s the best approach to covers. In this era, we really see who this band are.

If any album was their breakthrough and crossover of sorts, it’s British Steel, which has a bunch of their most famous songs: “Breaking The Law”, “Living After Midnight”, and “Metal Gods”. Judas Priest were making it into the top 20 at last! This album also brought in a new drummer, Dave Holland. Sound-wise they took inspiration from AC/DC after touring with them in Europe in 1979. Their popularity was on the rise and they were starting to headline venues. If the outfits from this era and the album cover and title didn’t shout heavy metal, I don’t know what does! It’s a good starting point for a new listener since you might already know some of the songs thanks to pop culture references and classic rock radio.

Following up with that was Point of Entry, which has radio friendly songs like “Don’t Go”, “Turning Circles” (has this kinda power pop intro), . No super long songs here. Not as strong as previous work.

1982’s Screaming For Vengeance is a popular album among fans and when touring to promote this album Judas Priest were headlining big venues even if their album’s chart performance wasn’t so great. Slash is a famous fan of this album and Martin Popoff interviews him in a couple of chapters in the book and it’s really cool to read his story and thoughts. The real highlights of the album are “You’ve Got Another Thing Coming” and “Electric Eye”.

On Defenders of the Faith, you see a little return to some homoerotic themed songs like “Jawbreaker” and “Eat Me Alive”, the latter of which made it to Tipper Gore’s “Filthy Fifteen” during the satanic panic over popular music in the 80s, that’s what led to that parental advisory sticker. However, young people saw that as giving the album a mystique and it only made them want to listen to it even more to rebel against their parents. People dubbed this Screaming For Vengeance II since it sounded pretty similar to the last album.

The classic rock era was a time of a lot of change and it doesn’t take long for a band to go from groundbreaking to old news. By the mid 80s, Judas Priest have been recording albums for a decade and in youngsters’ eyes that makes you a dinosaur. New bands like Metallica, Motley Crue, and Quiet Riot were establishing themselves and it’s hard to compete with something fresh. There were some personal issues in the band. Rob Halford was in the closet during Judas Priest’s heyday and to self-soothe from the pain of hiding his authentic self he turned to drugs and alcohol. He went to rehab after an overdose. Since 6 January 1986 he has been clean and sober. Turbo came out in April 1986 and with it came a new sound with guitar synthesisers (imo this gives it a dated sound, and not exactly in a good way). It was originally supposed to be a double album called Twin Turbos with two themes: commercial and traditional heavy metal, but they decided to go with a more commercial approach. There’s a poppy diss track called “Parental Guidance” written in response to Tipper Gore’s moral panic over their music. Reception for this album was mid. Some leftovers from that album were on their next album Ram It Down, which was panned by a lot of critics, who called it lacklustre, like the band were on autopilot, and a parody of themselves. Overall it was them returning to a more heavy metal sound.

In 1992, two years after Painkiller was released, Rob Halford left Judas Priest to form a new band, Fight. He had to formally leave Judas Priest so he could release music with Fight, a Pantera-inspired thrash/groove metal band. For a few years there Judas Priest were on hiatus. They came back in 1997 with Jugulator and 2001 with Demolition with Ripper Owens as lead singer. Before joining Judas Priest, he was in a group called Winter’s Bane and a Judas Priest tribute band called British Steel. In 2020, K.K. Downing formed KK’s Priest and Ripper Owens joined as lead singer. Finally, 15 years later Rob Halford returned for 2005’s Angel of Retribution – The Metal God Returns!

Overall this is a great read for Judas Priest fans and this format of books is like a podcast in a book with lots of Q&A interviews with analysis of the band’s discography. In many bits it’s very track by track, which I like as someone who likes analysing classic rock in depth. What I really appreciate about it is that it isn’t sycophantic or sugarcoated and the people interviewed weren’t afraid to say what they really thought. Lots of pictures of the band and some scans of memorabilia in this book. I appreciate that the book has no fluff, so you’re getting value and content there. Plus, if you’re someone who is interested in the later material as well as the stuff from the band’s peak, you’ll be happy to know that each album really gets its time in the book. If you got to buy a Christmas present for a Judas Priest fan, this would be a good choice.

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