7. Blood Red Skies (***1/2/****) - Blood Red Skies may be very long but it is their greatest epic song they've done. Think of it as one of those movies that has plot twists every so-often but still retains your interest and it doesn't feel like the movie is selling out. And the twists start coming at the beginning where there's an acoustic riff...but that's not the twist. The riff sounds familar but then you realize, it's The Hellion only acoustic. Then it starts all soft with the only thing that sounds like Priest are the high vocals. Then it gets going with a pounding guitars and keyboards which are good here. After that it's a battle of dominance between guitars and keyboards that kinda ends in a draw. But the one thing that truly makes it awesome is that chorus: You won't take me/You won't break me/I'll fight/UNDER BLOOD RED SKIES!!!
8. Nightcrawler (****/****) - Another song from the Painkiller album and I could end there. But no, for there's a really specific reason why I love it...not as much as the title track or Touch of Evil but I still love it. Not to say the rest of song is bad cause it isn't, it's textbook metal messiah but instead of something offering salvation, Nightcrawler offers death and destruction. There's this spoken-word bridge as the Nightcrawler finds the puny humans and kills them as it ends with this: Souls ascend to Heaven/As he feasts on flesh and blood! That's what fantasy metal is all about dammit!
9. Sinner (**/****) - Another song I cannot listen to but not because it's a technically bad song like Delivering the Goods and Beyond the Realms of Death. I skip it because it's so slow and boring. There's good guitar work here and there but not in the solo, the slowest metal solo ever solo...ed! I can't even muster the energy to even hate it like I did with the other bad Priest songs here.
10. Hot Rockin (***/****) - A music video can make a song awesome or just let it live in obscurity forever. Without Hot Rockin's video the song is equal to Heading out to the Highway. There's good lyrics and the overall sound has that fist-pumping vibe to it but it was a bit too faceless and generic to break out. The video however is pretty messed-up in a good way. First it starts off as multiple sets-up to various gay porn movies and it's taken up so seriously it's awesome....but no, nobody has gay sex in it. Then it ends with the band performing the song....while thier instruments are on FIRE! Halford's mic and boots are on FIRE! They're performing for an audience, you guessed it, of FIRE! Now if this song was only played during the movie Backdraft.
11. The Sentinel (***/****) - Another song from the Defenders of the Faith album but wait, this one actually has a strong ending. Shame the beginning isn't up to snuff. The riff isn't really a bad riff but it doesn't have that Judas Priest punch as it should. As for the structure of the song itself it's Nightcrawler but older...and with the hope that humans may win against it, they don't in another awesome spoken-word bridge but throwing knives are involved which is almost as awesome as souls ascending to heaven while it feasts on flesh and blood. Almost.
Last batch coming up
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