Judas Priest Discography Discussion (part 2 starting page 20)

Stained Class (1978)

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Exciter - 8/10
Awesome early double-bass and a real driving song, but the production lets it down. The rhythm guitars almost vanish during the verses, like they’re being turned down. It’s a solid tune with a really cool major-key Super Mario Bros section in the middle, but it’s far too long (by at least a minute) and the chorus rings flat for me. Still, it's a nice opener and sets the heavier vibe for the rest of the album.

White Heat, Red Hot - 7/10
Groovy as hell, like they finally figured out how Rocka Rolla should’ve sounded. I definitely hear the music that influenced bands like Armored Saint and even some of Adrian Smith’s riffing. Again, the chorus is a little lame and the post-chorus is vaguely annoying. Not bad, but so far this album is coasting and it’s mostly due to production and Halford’s melodies. Lyrics are good as always, though.

Better By You, Better Than Me - 9/10
Definitely the weakest lyrics so far, but damn, this song just grooves so hard! I love it. The unexpected quiet chorus is super cool. Very powerful for a sub-4 minute song. Loses a whole point for that shitty fade. I know it's a cover, but so far I'm liking Priest doing covers.

Stained Class - 8/10
Lots of Maiden vibes here. Halford is pretty annoying in the verses, but the music is quite good. That bridge riff around 3:20 is killer! Not my favorite, but solid.

Invader - 7/10
Another solid tune, but something about it just doesn’t click. It’s fine, but it reeks of being mid-album filler. Still, Halford sounds good, it’s groovy, I can dig it. Glenn’s solo is a bit odd, but certainly interesting. Definitely far better than Maiden’s similarly-titled song.

Saints in Hell - 9/10
This song rocks. Halford’s up in his super high range, but it sounds great. I love the bluesy way he ends each 4th line of the verses. The slinky riff under the “We are saints!” part is swell. A little lame vocally, but cool. I can’t wait to hear this one on some live recordings. Unfortunately, we’ve got another terrible fade. At least this time it’s more fitting to the tune.

Savage - 6/10
Another filler track, but I guess it’s serviceable enough. Definitely my least favorite on the album, but the only truly bad thing about it is how Rob yells “modern maaaaAUhyaaauhyhaun” during the chorus. KK’s solo is a solo.

Beyond the Realms of Death - 10/10
Holy shit. This is Priest’s Hallowed Be Thy Name. What a fucking piece of music. Just beautiful. It’s at turns moody and melancholic, then just straight up rocking. Killer, killer song. I would give Rob an MVP award for this track, but that award goes to Glenn for his outstanding, epic solo. 100% the best Priest song I’ve yet heard.

Heroes End - 7/10
Tons of swagger here, but shit, they should’ve ended the album with Beyond the Realms. This just can’t compare. It’s fine, it’s got a cool groove, but some of the lyrics are questionable (despite a good message in the chorus). It sounds very familiar and I think it's just that Armored Saint lifted this verse melody/riffing pattern on their first 2-3 albums in any number of songs...and I like the Saint better.

Album score - 7.8/10
Definitely the best, and most consistent, Priest album yet. Makes me feel good about the future!
 
I think you're being overgenerous with Stained Class there. It's their worst '70's album for me; less interesting than the previous three, nowhere near as strong as Killing Machine in both writing and sound. I can never get through it without skipping tracks for, as you hinted, the 'filler'.
However, the highlights are obvious with Realms and Better which has that wondrous pre-chorus sound akin to late '60's/early '70's spy programmes: a cimbalom? Probably just a guitar effect.

It has the best cover though. Stained Class is the only early Priest album to come with a printed inner sleeve. All others up until Vengeance have plain white paper(I don't have the Gull's, just Hero, Hero).
 
Stained Class is pretty consistent but it’s not in my top five because Beyond the Realms Of Death is the only essential song. The title track is underrated IMO
 
I don't know how to define essential or how many essential Priest songs we may count, but Saints in Hell and Exciter are top tracks as well.

All next three albums have songs that are worse than the least good Stained Class song. I'd even say all later pre-Painkiller albums (1978-1988).
 
Exciter is absolutely essential Priest. Will listen later and come back to this.
 
Exciter, might crack my top 30, but probably not.
Saints has never done much for me.
 
The Banger TV video that Foro link alluded to this, but much of Judas Priest's catalog can be grouped into pairs. I personally look at Stained Class as a companion album to Sin After Sin, although I'm sure some would argue that Sin After Sin should be paired with Sad Wings and that Stained Class should be paired with Killing Machine. I heard Sin After Sin and Stained Class at the same time and consequently look at them in a similar way. They both have that dark, gothic early Priest sound and both push the envelope on what Heavy Metal could be in the 70s. It is certainly a transitional album that further hints at their more commercial direction in the 80s.

That being said, there is a large gap in quality. Where Sin After Sin is a near perfect album and top 3 Priest, Stained Class is much more inconsistent. I see it as an album with two fantastic songs (Exciter and Beyond the Realms of Death) mixed with a bunch of decent to really good songs. Songs like Savage, Invader, and Hero's End are all good but don't quite live up to the standard set by the previous two albums and came seem filler-like. White Heat Red Hot shows an obvious move toward a more direct and commercial sound, but they're not quite there yet (although I would argue that Starbreaker proved that the band can write great commercial sounding material). Better By You Better Than Me is no Diamonds and Rust but it is a great cover that serves as an album highlight. Saints In Hell is also a really good song and easy to miss among the more filler sounding material.

One thing I do love about the album is the atmosphere. It's dark, like Sin After Sin, but this time they've upped the aggression and the heaviness. No proggy ballads like Last Rose of Summer and even the groovier songs have a sinister edge to them. It is certainly among Priest's heaviest albums.
 
Ziggyplayedguitar said:
No lyrics. It just has a band photo and details about the band/production credits. Black and red in colour.
Click to expand...
The black on mine looks dark brown.
It also has the diagonal lights from the back of the cover in white.
This is the start of the diagonal theme that keeps repeating and the first outing of the diagonal jagged logo. The original is red rather than the (reissued?) blue as shown above. Killing Machine had the only blue one.
 
I find Sin After Sin's rhythm guitars sounding dryer, rawer. On Stained Class they sound a bit more processed, more reverb or some other effect I don't know the name of. Still listen to these chops on Beyond the Realms. Brillant sounding riffing. Production could not be better.
 
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I am very curious about the next album already. Recently I have seen more praise for Killing Machine out here than in the previous 10 years. The sound is one thing but their change for trying to sound more accessible (commercial) is a pretty striking difference with its predecessor. Naturally this is continuing on (some of the) next albums but this is why I find these albums difficult to see as a pair. Stained Class still has some sort of proggy, "we do what we want vibe" (Better By You excepted), with a bit less focus on melody. It is more about atmosphere and melancholy, exciting changes in a song (e.g. in Saints and the title track with these midpeaces) riffing, speed and rhythm. Killing Machine, a warmer sounding album (probably the warmest sound from the seventies, together with Run of the Mill from the debut) gets more compact with still that seventies vibe and that Les Binks groove. His drumming and the difference with the even more uncomplicated forms of songs on British Steel make me feel that all these turn of the decade albums have their own vibe, style and sound. I love these own identities.
 
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Something I noticed about the jagged logo in that there are two different styles.
As it's in joined-up writing, each letter is followed by a 'tail' to adjoin to the next letter.
But with the reunion albums, AND Stained Class, the 'a' has no tail, therefore only have 5 underline zigzags followed by 3, instead of 6 followed by 3.
Looking at Stained Class there is a 'v' under the 'u', its tail, 'd', its tail, and then the 'a' followed by a straight line to the 3 zigzags under Priest. This is the same on Firepower, Redeemer and Retribution, and possibly British Steel as it looks like a tailless 'a' but the razor holes make it inconclusive.
All others that use the logo have the extra zigzag under the 'a' tail - Machine, Unleashed, Point, Vengeance, Defenders, Turbo, Ram and Painkiller.

Not very interesting.
 
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