Judas Priest
Painkiller

THE REVIEW

After 2 albums (Turbo and Ram it Down) that were poorly received by the public and critics, when many were already singing their funeral praises, the "Judas Priest" returns with an extraordinary album, nothing short of exceptional, that stands on the level of the band's best albums and can be considered, without any fear of exaggeration, among the most beautiful records in the entire heavy metal genre.

The album opens with the devastating title track, in which the exploits of the "Painkiller" (= "Sedative") are sung about, yet another epic (or ridiculous, depending on the point of view) character in a gallery that began back in the '70s with characters like "Ripper", "Sinner", "Exciter" and the like. The thunderous drum intro that starts the track introduces us to Scott Travis, another drummer recruited by the band, an acclaimed virtuoso, and former member of Paul Gilbert's technically advanced Racer-X. His mastery of the double bass drum and the more modern cut of his style are one of the ingredients that allow the band to achieve, with this album, a near musical miracle: offering music that is perfectly in step with the times (in which the average level of sonic heaviness of metal bands has now increased) while maintaining the typical Priest sound absolutely intact, recognizable at least from "Sad Wings of Destiny" of 1976... it is not easy for a band (and for an artist in general) to modernize while absorbing the innovations introduced by younger artists, without losing essence and continuing to be themselves: with "Painkiller", Judas surely succeeded.

Returning to the song "Painkiller," the drum intro we spoke about is followed by a sharp and pressing riff and a simply insane vocal line, a kind of chant performed with Halford's classic screaming, here even more ferocious than usual: both the riff and the vocal melody consist of simple ideas, few notes, but they are overwhelmingly effective, demonstrating that the great ones are so precisely because they can do so much with so little. The rest of the song is absolutely in line with the beginning, thus contributing to create, forgive me for the insistence, one of the greatest songs in the entire heavy metal genre (a judgment confirmed by the choice of important bands like Angra and especially Death to cover it): anthemic chorus, other blazing riffs, hyper-high vocals, perfect structure... special commendation especially for the solos, which manage to perfectly combine melody and technique, sound clarity, and screeching effects like squeals, whammy bar passages, and aggressive picking.

The rest of the album continues at the same quality levels; with this, I don't want to say that all the other tracks are like the title track, quite the contrary: as experienced veterans and "fathers" of the genre, Priest knows that the secret of a good album is the wise balance between the various songs. Thus, if Painkiller is the right, devastating introduction, it is equally fitting to find many types of different metal songs, all perfectly developed; therefore, the album shifts from the mid-tempo thirds of Hell Patrol to the furious onslaught of Metal Meltdown, from the classic metal single (Night Crawler) to the pseudo-ballad A Touch of Evil, to the concluding, complex, and epic One Shot at Glory. But the band's almost twenty-year experience alone would not have been enough to produce such a masterpiece: here we must thank an inspiration certainly above the norm (even for the band's history) and probably the strong determination to return to the forefront and pinnacle of that genre, heavy metal, which Priest more than anyone else (perhaps second in this only to Black Sabbath) helped to birth and grow. Perfectly centered objective, so much so that Painkiller is perhaps the band's most famous album and there are not a few metal kids who adore it and ignore the previous masterpieces made by Judas in the '70s and '80s... and this too is a near miracle: how many other artists have made one of their most successful works a full 16 years after their debut?

Two technical notes to conclude. The lyrics remain on the usual Priest standard, perfect for those who love this kind of lyrics and appreciate their ability to marry music, almost ridiculous for those who seek a certain depth, let's say of a singer-songwriter type. Even here, the themes are always the same: epic war scenes (One Shot at Glory), violent and unscrupulous characters (Hell Patrol), apocalyptic scenarios (Metal Meltdown), monstrous creatures (Night Crawler), and the classic unhealthy love-hate stories typical of Halford (A Touch of Evil). As for the musicians' performances, it must be said that the magic provided to us here by Rob Halford and the twins Tipton and Downing would alone be worth the purchase of the album. The former showcases a series of vocal parts among his best ever: his classic screaming is even more powerful and searing than usual, confirming him as one of the greatest hard'n'heavy singers of all time... incredible in particular is his ability to execute very high lines while maintaining a coarse and virile timbre and not thin and "feminine", or excessively shrill as others do. Equal merit goes to the two guitarists, often unfairly overlooked by heavy metal guitar enthusiasts: the notes made above for the Painkiller song solos apply indeed to the whole album.