6. Love Bites (***/****) - There are four songs here that are from the Defenders of the Faith album and three of them suffer from beginning strong but faltering at the end. This is one of those songs. It has one hell of a bass riff that sounds like a doom march and it builds and builds until the vocals hit, each line followed by a guitar riff. Then the second verse even explodes with awesome back-up vocals by Glenn Tipton. I mean, watch the 1986 Love Bites performance to see why, especially the way Tipton runs to the mic. Then, there's a decent bridge and it all goes to hell. There's a long solo and it's not even a good solo. It's a waste of notes, time and talent to have a solo that weak. Then the song tries to recover with the last of vocals but by then it's too late. It's a good song with great energy but it just can't get past the solo.
7. Heading out to the Highway (**1/2/****) - This is quite an odd song for Priest now but back when it's released...it's was really odd. The line of logic for this and the rest of the Point of Entry album made sense. British Steel was a success thanks to the pop-hooks of Breaking the Law, United and the like so they wanted to chase that pop success to lesser returns. It's not that Heading out to the Highway is a bad song for it has a good groove, a sing-a-long sensibility and a very good solo but it just feels so much like pandering to the mainstream. But it's decent pandering and I almost feel bad for giving it such a low score but gut feelings are gut feelings.
8. Ram it Down (**/****) - This song absolutely is a waste of potential! It begins with a great metal scream, has an excellent speed-metal groove and a chorus you can crash your car to. So what happened? Why must I damned this to a mediocre song with extreme prejucide? Easy, once again a long solo but not just any long solo....a really frustrating long solo. Barely two minutes into Ram it Down the solo begins...and continues...and continues and it continues just in time for the song to have one last chorus before ending. So out of almost 5 minutes of song, there's barely over two minutes of vocals. I find this unacceptable with the potential awesomeness this could have had.
9. Beyond the Realms of Death (*1/2/****) - People like to think that Les Binks was the peak of drummers of Judas Priest. Me, I considered him a blight on the band. But I'm not going to be attacking his drumming here for the drumwork is controlled and competent for once, besides I have to save up on that front for Delivering the Goods. No, he co-write this including the riff. A song that tries to combine hard and soft music but fails miserably. This song does make no musical sense and I skip this track at all times. I tried to listen to this again for the purpose of this review but I just couldn't get past it. So skip it, not good.
10. You Got Another Thing Coming (**/****) - What is wrong with you people?! This song is not a classic, this song should never been the only charting song Priest had in America, this song should never been released as a single period! The band even admitted that this song was filler on the Screaming for Vengance album, filler! This does only the bare minimum to get by: a generic intro, an unmemorable solo and a weak performance from all involved. It's just there and that's what gets me. Out of all the songs that should've charted like Take on the World, Breaking the Law, United, Turbo Lover or Before the Dawn...the fact that this charted and not those songs makes me even more dissapointed in this.
Next batch coming soon.
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