JUDAS PRIEST - Painkiller

Tired of living in the shadow of the more talented and younger Iron Maiden, but also scared by the huge success of thrash metal bands, Judas Priest gathered all their strength, possible and impossible and September 1990 came up with an album that not only redeems them for any past mistakes, but has remained in history as the best heavy metal record of all times for many fans of the genre.

I don’t know how many were expecting a response of this magnitude from Judas Priest, but in my opinion that a great part of this success belongs to a young American drummer called Scott Travis, who gave more force and speed, making the band resemble speed-thrash bands. While until then the five Britons seemed to limit themselves to classic heavy metal, now they look to be leaving that sound behind in favor of thrash. Rob Halford has an overflowing energy in his voice that simply flattens everything in a ten-mile radius. K.K. Downing brings memorable riffs and a few very enjoyable guitar solos. On the other guitar we have Glenn Tipton, who spews solos that are so screaming and aggressive that you feel that your eardrums are going to give way.

One of the few flaws of this record, which for me is a big one, is that it is very hard to hear the bass guitar. If the other band members manage to exceed their limits, Ian Hill not only did not do that, but he failed to keep up to what he had done. We could compare this to a football tournament where one of the teams, while only having ten or nine players in the field, easily manages to defeat its opponents and wins comfortably.

Surely this album could have not been released in its final form if it hadn’t benefitted from the best production any metal band had had until that time. The main help came from Chris Tsangarides, who, even though he buried Ian Hill completely, brought a breath of fresh air to the band. It is also Chris who appears among those who wrote A Touch of Evil, together with Glenn Tipton, Rob Halford, and K.K. Downing. The three official band members are in fact the ones who wrote all the other songs on Painkiller.

About the songs, it is very hard for me to say which is best, or which one is my favorite, because to me they all seem to be at the same, very high level. And this is despite of previous releases, when I would be happy for a month if I could find two good songs (with the exception of Screaming for Vengeance and Sad Wings of Destiny). Well, it is very possible that I have this opinion because Painkiller was the very first Judas Priest album I heard. And after you hear that, you don’t care much for Ram it Down, Defenders of the Faith, Point of Entry or Turbo.

For many of us, the greatest regret was that Rob Halford chose not to continue with Judas Priest, leaving with no explanation immediately after the release tour for this product. There were voices that said that the next album would have certainly been as good as Painkiller, if it had appeared within one or two years, with Halford on vocals, of course. Personally, I think that Judas Priest could not have done more, because this album has raised the bar in heavy metal so high that not even its creators could come up with something to match it. This is why it is safe to say that all heavy metal released after Painkiller could not be as well received by the public, for the simple reason that nothing ever managed to rise again to this record’s level, and the genre is now being kept alive by its fans alone.

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