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Great album, along with the '78 twin Killing Machine, it completes the podium of my favorite Priest records, though it’s consistently a notch behind Sad Wings. Here, the stylistic variety of the previous two albums (especially the usual big record from '76) is abandoned, and the band solidifies into a hard/heavy rock-metal that, damn it, is practically a primer for all their students of the following decade, Maiden and the lovely NWO gang, etc., as well as the Dio-era Sabbath, in many aspects (and, as always, done better by Judas). The best songs for me are "Fire Burns Below" and the beautiful cover from the stunning second album of Spooky Tooth, "Better By You, Better Than Me," which I may prefer because it stays closer to 70s rock/hard rock territory, even though the beautiful closing track fully embraces the grandiose tones, which can also be perfectly traced in '70s hard rock, and everything connects. The only one that convinces me less is "Saints in Hell"; everything else excites me greatly, nice nice, from the opening duo "Exciter"-"White Heat-Red Hot" to the title track, passing through the third best song of this album, "Beyond the Realms of Death," with some great guitar solos, especially Tipton's.

I had always skipped this album, going directly to the two that followed. Then I thought, "Why not give it a listen, you never know..." I should have continued to skip it. Terrible album. Pure and hatefully “radio-friendly heavy metal”—the kind that is truly not very heavy and truly not very metal (I call it pop-metal)—but above all, tremendously tacky, sycophantic, and unnecessarily, overwhelmingly over-the-top, gaudy, "epic" (in the worst sense of the term this time). Unfortunately, it’s a genre that quickly goes from enjoyably garish to monstrously bad for me. This one is bad. It has a couple of delightfully tacky moments, but it's bad. Comparing this album to the attitude of a "Killing Machine," as well as to the songs themselves, this album self-destructs. A major misstep for the band, and also the only one I’ve ever listened to, since the next two aren’t my cup of tea, but they’re amusingly tacky-fun, and "Painkiller" is instead a colossal leap in luxury. I don’t know the two from '86-'88 and I don’t want to know them; twice the same nonsense, no thanks.

My favorite Judas album after Sad Wings. Beautiful because it returns to the bloodier and rawer territories of Rock/Hard Rock, while still containing some of the more "refined" and melodic aspects here and there, leaving the more airy and epic style of "classic metal" — let’s call it that — which they were progenitors of (and which is still present, see the lovely opening "Deliver the Goods"). There’s a greater urgency and visceral quality in this "Killing Machine," which makes me prefer it slightly over its "brother" released a few months earlier, which is almost equally valid, of course. Here, the only one that doesn't say much to me is "Evening Star"; the rest is explosive. The sequence of three songs from "Burnin' Up" to "Killing Machine" (irresistible) is unbeatable, and they are all among my favorites from the band. In the middle, of course, shines the excellent cover (not easy) of one of the masterpieces that the Green Wizard of English Blues-Rock wrote with Fleetwood Mac (the last one, to be precise), that perfect spellbinding anthem of rock-blues, "The Green Manalishi," which reveals their appreciation for the Green Mac and which will become a classic in their live set. The ballad "Before the Dawn" is also beautiful, confirming their melodic taste, and while it’s just a bit too romantic and sentimental, it’s still very lovely. And then there's the lighter and poppy part with "Take on the World," featuring a stadium anthem (Queen-esque without being as annoying) that sounds almost like a cleaned-up pub song from England.

A classic, immature debut album, still somewhat "undecided," but not a bad record for that. Simply put, it's mostly a hard rock album that feels a bit generic, enjoyable but somewhat flat, with very few moments or tracks that really elevate it from the crowd; it stays, rather, in the average realm of any standard hard rock album from those years (with a few nice songs, like "One for the Road"). Then there are the tracks where Judas seek different atmospheres and genres (as they would do on Sad Wings, but with very different results), but even the triptych "Winter/Deep Freeze/Winter Retreat," originally conceived as a single piece divided into three sections, or the final instrumental, the delicate "Caviar and Meths," don’t particularly stand out and leave me completely indifferent. However, there are two tracks on the album that manage to shine well beyond the average quality of the remaining pieces: "Dying to Meet You," distinctly divided into two parts and particularly beautiful in the first half, and the rock ballad "Run of the Mill," with its almost 9 minutes, which is in my opinion the first true great piece by Priest, a classic rock ballad, with a classic long guitar solo, but beautiful, inspired, very well-executed, a fantastic track. Two years later, what will come will come, and it will obviously be a whole different story.

I like it less than Sad Wings, without a doubt, but it's a good album nonetheless, marking the start of the band's '77-'80 period, which is characterized by "Not as beautiful as in Sad Wings, but damn, I really like these metalheads." Compared to its predecessor, it gives up on more fanciful theatricality, greater eclecticism, and a certain "elegance," settling into an alternating pattern of more classically Hard Rock tracks (with a bit of that over-the-top epicness here and there, thankfully not overly annoying) and very, very successful ballads. "Last Rose of Summer" is my favorite on the album; they are often talked about as the forefathers of the typical "heavy metal ballad," but this is an almost "singer-songwriter" song that confirms their remarkable melodic ability. A beautiful song. Just as beautiful is the Baez cover and the melancholic, twilight, warm, and dark melody of "Here Come the Tears," because in my opinion, Judas had the best typical British melodic taste. On the hard side, "Sinner" is a fantastic piece (and this album features Simon Phillips, the best drummer to ever come through their ranks, I mean...) but the others are great too ("Let Us Prey" and "Raw Deal" especially) with clear proto NWOBHM inspirations and nods to Hard Rock classics (Purple, Zeppelin, and the like), both musically and in Halford's vocals, with Bobby Pianta's guiding manuals popping up every so often, as it should be. A nice album.