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Rating: We are in the year 1969, and the formidable trio of Rock (Black Sabbath - Deep Purple - Led Zeppelin) is ready to produce its first masterpieces. While "Led Zeppelin I" is about to be released, in Birmingham (UK), the people (better, musicians, because that's what they are) who will invent Metal are beginning to take their first small steps. Kenneth Downing Jr (1951), guitarist, and Ian Frank Hill (1951), former double bassist, decide to form a band. They are joined by drummer John Ellis and singer Al Atkins, who borrows from a Bob Dylan song the name that will become legend.
Up to this point, everything seems normal: the band, just born, begins to write material and appears destined to play very ordinary Hard Rock, inspired in part by the dark Black Sabbath and on the other by the roaring Deep Purple and also by the bluesy matrix of Cream. Instead, 1973 changes everything. In the formation Judas Priest enters the one who will become the "voice" of Metal, the twenty-two-year-old Robert John Arthur Halford (at the time with long blonde hair and the typical seventies rocker look), the heavenly voice, the voice that reaches very high peaks, before fading away in the sky. A year passes, and everything is completed with the addition of the second guitar player Glenn Raymond Tipton (1948) and the replacement of John Ellis with Alan Moore. For the final turning point, we will have to wait until 1976, but 1974 gives us this decent Hard Rock album, which feels so familiar (saying it today is obvious, but even at the time, everything had already been done, played, and written by others), and tries, without succeeding, to show something new, that spark that will decisively mark the history of Rock and burn everything and everyone two years later.
To say that "Rocka Rolla" is bad doesn't make much sense, it is unripe and not very surprising, but in the few insights, it shows a compositional genius with few equals for the time and later (in the field of Classic Heavy Metal) without rivals, able to hold its own against the spectacular trio Halford-Tipton-Downing, but that is another story, still very distant at that moment. It should be noted that the compositional genius previously examined does not openly concern the album in question, but in the unripe riffs and bluesy guitar solos, as well as in the sharp and splendid singing, hides the class of musicians who will change the history of rock music and beyond.
Halford's voice cannot be confined solely to a strictly rock or metal context, so much is the appeal and class concentrated in the singer's tone. Classic Judas songs are difficult to find in this old and dusty album, but at least small gems shine with their own light, such as the ride "Diamonds And Rust" (included in the remastered occasion), with its simple and engaging riffs, the simultaneously rough and divine voice, the long journey of "Run To The Mill", slow pacing, with Tipton and Downing playing Clapton and Page, Hill on top, an ending reminiscent of King Crimson (and not only in this piece is some progressive reference present). "One For The Road" is Rock as it was played at the time, it is the essence of what Rock was, and it is what we should still learn from today. In its monotony, a sincere piece, with a chorus that seems to say these are the seventies.
The "title-track" is the most banal song and at the same time the most engaging of the whole album, a concentration of musical immaturity that makes you smile and enjoys showing the desire to express themselves of a young band destined for great things.
Rating: 6.5
Tracklist Lyrics and Videos
01 One for the Road (04:34)
Where would you be without music
You would be nowhere at all
We wouldn't be here doing this now
If you weren't having a ball
One for the road, sharing our load, show us the way
Can you imagine the silence
Not even the pink or white noise
Well thankfully we've got the license
To have us some fun with the boys
One for the road, sharing our load, show us the way
The melody line's fascinating
The rhythm is something divine
It sends our adrenaline racing
To see you all moving so fine
One for the road, sharing our load, show us the way
One for the road...
02 Rocka Rolla (03:02)
Man eatin momma, steam driven hammer
Sorts the men out from the boys
Takes no messin', all in wrestlin'
Is one of her pride and joys
She a classy, flashy lassy
Imitation sapphire shine
Two faced liar, full of fire
But I know the flame is mine
Rocka rolla woman for a rocka rolla man
You can take her if you want her
If you think you can
Rocka rolla woman for a rocka rolla man
You can take her if you want her you can
She's a grip and choke ya
Heavy smoker
Wrong side of the law
Midnight shady
Good time lady
Heavy, ready show you what for
Barroom fighter
Ten pint a nighter
Definite ninety-nine
Diamond cluster
Knuckle duster
Feline on the borderline
Rocka rolla woman for a rocka rolla man
You can take her if you want her
If you think you can
Rocka rolla woman for a rocka rolla man
You can take her if you want her you can
04 Never Satisfied (04:49)
[Downing/Halford]
Where do we go from here
There must be something me near
Changing you, changing me forever
Places change,face change
Life is so very strange
Changing time, changing lies together
There's nowhere else to go...
This could be or last show
We're never satisfied
Live is gone along with fun
Now we're reaching for the gun
Changing cash, changing fast
No more tether
We are never satisfied
06 Dying to Meet You (06:18)
Came in this morning high on a bird's wing
Quite open minded but still quite aware
Followed the sunrise right through from dawning
Picking out landmarks that said I was there
Led to positions by stern faced leaders
Who never let one smile depart from their face
Then with an arm raise the slaughter is started
One or two crack up and start to cry
Selfishness breeds in this cesspool of sorrow
Every few moments I see I friend die
Synchronized watches flash in the sunlight
As into the battle we are all led
Killer, killer, keep your thoughts at bay
Maiming, destroying, every single day
Is this the way that you get your fun
Slaying, waylaying, in the heat of the midday sun
Get out, get out, go and do your job
Rape and pillage, squander all and rob
You make me sick, getting paid for murder
You wouldn't lay a finger on your mother, oh no
You never ever dream to hurt her
Hero, hero, you have done so well
So sit back and lick your wounds, cause you won't go to hell
Take your medal, wear it now with pride
Consolation for the pain and sin you feel inside
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