p e n g u i n d e v i l

There is always something new out there, isn’t there? Even when it’s old. Now I’ve been a Judas Priest fan for quite some time having seen them live in 1982 and I’ve been pretty consistently listening to the 6 albums that they put out from 1978 to 1984; from Killing Machine (aka Hell Bent for Leather) through Defenders of the Faith, though in the last twenty years it has primarily been Point of Entry (of course), British Steel and Unleashed in the East. But I’ve rarely heard anything past that. Turbo makes me vomit, but Painkiller is good… I’ve never heard so much as a minute from their 4 other later albums. Oddly, I’ve never made an attempt to hear their first 4 albums. I think I’ve long owned a copy of Stained Class, but I don’t recall ever listening to it. I certainly have seen them in the stores enough over the years and thinking of all the crap I’ve bought in that time, I really don’t know why I never picked them up. Anyway, why all this? Well, I finally decided to give their second album a try, 1976’s Sad Wings of Destiny.

I think I did because I’ve loved Unleashed in the East for so long (thinking it one of the best live albums out there) and 4 of my favorite songs on it (especially Tyrant), I’d never heard any other way, since they reside on this record. Finally I thought, I wonder what the non-live versions sound like. Well, colour me bad. The album is great! A greater discovery for me then the Scorpion’s Speedy’s Coming was 30 years after it’s release.

Sad Wings of Destiny is easily my second favorite priest album now, right up there with Point of Entry… Why are my favorite Priest albums their least metal? I don’t know, but this certainly isn’t metal by any modern definition. And it’s much different from their later music. The music itself sounds quite sparse with Rob’s vocal very much in the foreground. To some extent it seems somewhat proggie, with some odd choruses (check out Victim of Changes and the “even greater than the live version”, Tyrant for some great vocal stylings) and there is even an instrumental piano piece, which is one of the two tracks that I can do without. Anyway, it’s hands down a great album, and it’s a weird album. One that I have to listen to a good deal to make up for all these years. Maybe I don’t need to bother with Unleashed anymore, since I don’t particularly care for live music anyway…

In a similar vein, I recently made another discovery from the vaults. While I was never as big an Iron Maiden fan, I still spent more than my share of life listening to The Number of the Beast. And I also had selected tracks from the two following albums that I give a lot of airplay to, but I’d never given their preceding album a shot. A lot of people have always recommended it suggesting that DiAnno is a better vocalist that Dickinson and that it’s less poppy. So now, Iron Maiden’s Killers.

One reason I’d always avoided was because it doesn’t have Bruce Dickinson singing on it, but man, it’s good. As above, Killers is now right up there as my second favorite Maiden album, with nary a bad song on it. Its music is quite a bit rougher than Beast, and much more so than their dramatic balladeering. It features some great instrumental and the fantastic track Wrathchild, which is the crazy old school metal high point of the album. though I could do without the bonus tracks on the CD…

I don’t know why I’d avoided these so long, but it’s nice to discover music from a loved band that is better than anything they’ve put out in decades.