Judas Priest Studio Album Survivor: Painkiller wins !

Satisfied?

  • Total voters
    9
  • Poll closed .
Sara said:
I think "Jugulator" gets flak for two reasons: One, Rob Halford wasn't on it, and two, it was a much more brutal sounding album than anything previously done by the band. But to me, it still sounds like a Judas Priest album, and there's no song on the album I dislike. It's not as good as the best albums with Rob, but it is a very underrated album, that I feel would have received much more praise had it not been released under the name "Judas Priest"...
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Another aspect: I think the solos were way less enjoyable than on previous albums.
 
Forostar said:
Another aspect: I think the solos were way less enjoyable than on previous albums.
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Hmm... I think the style on the album called for a much more upfront, chaotic type of soloing. The solos on that album are actually very Slayer-esque, to my ears. K.K. played a lot of solos on the album, as his rawer, more frenetic style of soloing, was more at home on the more brutal material, than Glenn's more melodic, thought-out method of soloing. I actually think the solos suit the music, and the intense solo duel during "Bullet Train", is actually one of my fave lead breaks on any Priest song. :)
 
I felt they were not only more frenetic but also more monotone/repetitive, focusing on fewer notes. You could say that this fits the music, but I still thought more could be made out of it. Especially K.K.'s soloing declined around that time, you can also hear it on the following live album. Really, as if K.K. couldn't do better on that album. Maybe he had some kind of (temporary?) physical problem.
 
Turbo is definitely a weaker album for me than Ram it Down. RiD is where they started to create really good and quite complex solos. Great guitar melodies and screams by Halford. Locked In also has an amazing lead but the rest of the song is just funny (the intro riff is quite nice).

About Jugulator: the guitar tone is crap compared to earlier albums, the drums don't sound powerful. Seems like the drums lack bass and snare. Ripper does some very interesting vocal things but Priest was always about great melodies supporting the vocals. The songs sound similar and can't get me interested. The album is brutal but not in a very likeable way. The brutality just takes away the space that could be used for melodies.

There are moments I love on the album as well. For example, the intro of Cathedral Spires is nothing short of amazing. Finally, something beautiful. Secondly, Abductors has memorable and enjoyable vocals but then the solo hits and I think: "What's that? What the fuck kind of guitar tone is that?"
 
Jugulator certainly has good songs on it. Death Row, Cathedral Spires, Burn in Hell, Abductors and more.
Another few aspects: I know this is just a detail but it bothered me that they extended Ripper's scream in Bullet Train. Not sure when it is, I thought in the middle, but when you focus on the vibration you can clearly hear that they did some copy-pasting (repeating a part and trying to make it sound as one take).
Also I didn't like Ripper overdoing some things, and the addition of some effects on top of his voice (like some dumb low voiced Muppet is wailing along). The result sounds in my ears as very exaggerated and forced. I love aggressive metal, but I rather have it a bit more pure (and real).

Some more aspects in the Turbo vs Ram It Down comparison:
Turbo has a better production and I feel it does not use fake drums (if there are fake drums, then at least they are not as clearly audible as on RID). I am sure that there is a drum machine on Ram It Down. You can clearly hear it when there is that long and fast fill on the snare drum in the title track and it's also audible from the machine-like sound. Don't think that these aspects affect my decision much (way less than the grabbing nature of the songs itself, such as melody and atmosphere), but I still thought this had to be mentioned.
 
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Forostar said:
I felt they were not only more frenetic but also more monotone/repetitive, focusing on fewer notes. You could say that this fits the music, but I still thought more could be made out of it. Especially K.K.'s soloing declined around that time, you can also hear it on the following live album. Really, as if K.K. couldn't do better on that album. Maybe he had some kind of (temporary?) physical problem.
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Well, K.K. always had a rougher, less refined style, when comparing him with Glenn, and I think on that album, he was really in his element. The type of distortion used also added to the rougher tone of the solos, so I think that had a part to play too. Also, at that time, Priest were deliberately trying to emulate bands like Machine Head, so it's not too surprising to me that the sound as whole, was very different. It was the style they were going for at the time. :)

As for "Turbo" vs "Ram It Down", the former has 3 songs I dislike, whereas RID only really has one I dislike (Which is "Love Zone", although I do like the solo in it.), although I also find "Monsters Of Rock" to be a bit monotonous. It's tricky, because I'm not sure how both albums' best songs fare against one another...
 
@Drums on RID: Geez, if only Scott Travis had been on that album, that definitely would have elevated it a notch or two!
 
Yeah, the drums get annoying at times but don't bother me too much
Dave Holland (credited, but did not perform) – drums
 
Ram it Down was my early favourite album for Priest, and although it is these days lower on my list it has not actually dropped in terms of appreciation, so much as the others have come up. I enjoy all the songs except for Love Zone/Love you to Death, and I agree much so that had Travis been on the album to add some faster drumwork similar to Painkiller, that RiD would be much closer to that performance that we all adored. It got heavily panned by critics and didn't sell well commercially but I do think the album has it's merits, even just in showcasing the bands direction. Title track, Heavy Metal and Hard as Iron have some great performances imho. I may have to vote for it soon, but it shan't be now!

I also really enjoy Turbo, Wild Nights is the low point of the album but it still not a song that I will skip past (Turbo Lover is one I skip these days, but that's due to associations rather than the track itself, which I think very highly of). I have great difficulty imagining Reckless in Top Gun, but I also like all of the Turbo session bonus tracks dotted around (Red White and Blue, Prisoner, All Fired Up). Like Ram it Down it's an album that I really enjoy, but has slipped towards the bottom half of the Priest rankings through no fault of it's own as much as the brilliance of the rest.

Jugulator, it's hard to think of it as a Priest album because it's so different in style! As an album itself I think it's great, and so even amongst Priests material it gets a reasonably good level on the list. I see it the same way I do Chinese Democracy (another album I very much enjoy), I think it's actually a brilliant album but was badly received because it doesn't fit the existing material that bears the same name. Hell I enjoy Demolition too though so I'm probably just an oddball there :P (Although I remember once giving a friend a DVD of my Priest discography, and when I next spoke to him Demolition was the album he first tried, and thoroughly enjoyed - to him it was going from great to awesome when he tried the rest).

For me I think it'll probably be the earlier albums and British Steel that start to drop first... all good albums, but due to the style I tend not to listen to them as frequently.
 
Saapanael said:
Seriously though, I don't understand the "love" for Jugulator.
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A bit late to this discussion, but you should check out live versions of those songs, 98 Live Meltdown is probably the best representation of the Ripper era. When I heard Jugulator I was massively underwhelmed, the songs have no power, everything sounds contained. They sound so much better live, those are the only versions I'll listen to.
 
I played the Turbo, Ram It Down and Jugulator albums and I have to confess that it's difficult to choose which I like the least. Every album has enough good aspects to like as a whole. The worst songs are definitely on Ram it Down. I hate Love Zone, Come and Get It and Love You to Death. Wild Nights is the only other song on these three albums that comes close to this level of agony. But the best songs might be on Ram It Down as well.... this is hard!
 
Just as with Rush, the debut album (from the same year) had to go in round 3:

14. Rocka Rolla (1974)
15. Point of Entry (1981)
16. Demolition (2001)

FSR.jpg
 
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Thanks to Night Prowler, who made a proper rules pic (see opening post)!

My listening session to Jugulator helped me to make up my mind. At this point I still do not know which of the remaining albums I find the least, that's for you lot to decide... ... but I do know it's not Jugulator, not just yet.

1986 Turbo
1988 Ram it Down
2005 Angel of Retribution
 
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