With more than 30 million albums sold, Judas Priest has been pivotal in putting British metal on the map. Their eighth album, Screaming For Vengeance, is celebrating its 30th anniversary and Legacy has stepped up with a double-disc special edition, including not only the remastered album from 1982, but a DVD of Priest’s monumental set on Heavy Metal Day at the second US Festival in May 1983.
The album opens with the trilling dual electrics of K.K. Downing and Glenn Tipton on the brief instrumental “The Hellion.” From there, we move into “Electric Eye,” which finds Rob Halford biting around the lyric. “Riding On The Wind” begins with a phased drum opening, while a tight snare and roiling low tom are present throughout. Of all the tracks on Screaming For Vengeance, “Bloodstone” is the epitome of Priest perfection. Halford is at his screaming best, bassist Ian Hill and drummer Dave Holland maintain a meaty bottom end, and Tipton and Downing route around lead parts, which are a lot less about screaming high notes than well-placed riffery.
Halford’s one-of-a-kind scream opens the blistering title track and there is no mistaking we are listening to a Judas Priest track. This one is not for the faint-of-heart, middling amateur metal fan! “You’ve Got Another Thing Coming” benefits from the remastering. This is certainly one of the best commercial metal tunes of all time and ironically, as the legend goes, a last-minute addition to what the band considered at the time a completed album. The remastered CD also features six bonus songs, including live 1982 renditions of “Electric Eye,” “Riding On The Wind,” “You’ve Got Another Thing Comin’” and “Screaming For Vengeance.”
What really makes the 30th anniversary edition of Screaming For Vengeance special is the DVD. VH1 Classic has shown some of the US Festival performances over the years, but getting the nearly full set —12 songs in all — including “Breaking The Law,” “Hell Bent For Leather” and “Diamonds and Rust,” is a blast from the past any headbanger will savor. Altogether, this is one solid, fist-pumping set that shouldn’t be missed.
~ Ralph Greco, Jr.
