By JAY ROBERTS

The Cassette Chronicles is a continuing series of mini reviews and reflections on albums from the 1980’s and 1990’s. The aim of this series is to highlight both known and underappreciated albums from rock, pop and metal genres from this time period through the cassette editions of their releases. Some of the albums I have known about and loved for years, while others are new to me and were music I’ve always wanted to hear. There will be some review analysis and my own personal stories about my connection with various albums. These opinions are strictly my own and do not reflect the views of anyone else at Limelight Magazine.

JUDAS PRIEST – PAINKILLER (1990)

The Judas Priest album Painkiller album came out in September 1990. This was despite the recording sessions being completed by March of that year, but at the time they were still dealing with a civil lawsuit against them regarding two men who killed themselves and subliminal messages allegations. The suit, dismissed in August 1990, ended up delaying the release date.

However, once the release hit shelves…HOLY CRAP!!! If fans had been unhappy with the past few releases (and that’s a BIG if considering I actually like those albums) from the band, Painkiller wasted no time in letting people know just how aggressive and heavy this album was going to be.

The Painkiller album was the first to feature former Racer X drummer Scott Travis behind the kit and when the album explodes forth from your speakers, it is his molten hot drum intro that powers the opening of the album’s title track. It has been 33 years since the album came out and I still get both chills and simultaneously amped up when I hear that killer drum intro.

Then the guitars kick in to give the track an even bigger jolt and finally the band is joined by a viciously vivacious vocal performance from Rob Halford. I don’t remember how the song was received by others back in the day, but over the passage of time, I’ve found this to be one of my all-time favorite Judas Priest songs. It is just a monstrously powerful sonic track that gives you precious little time to catch your breath before continuing its wildly frenetic attack on your eardrums.

Fast moving and creating a somewhat darker feel given the lyrical content, “Hell Patrol” continues that hard-hitting feel from the title track. I love the way Halford performs the vocal on this one. You can almost imagine this track as the title credits for a movie or TV series about said Hell Patrol.

You could probably say the same for “All Guns Blazing” but even more than that similar frenzied delivery from Judas Priest, I just love the way this one comes across as you listen to it. It is as explosive as the ending sounds included in the song itself.

While “Leather Rebel” didn’t last long in the band’s live set past the Painkiller tour, that’s not any kind of indictment against the song. The way the song opens with a killer guitar riff and builds the song around that selfsame riff is quite incredible. There’s no chance to rest on your laurels here.

In fact, it would be kind of foolish of me not to spotlight for a moment the duo of Glenn Tipton and K.K. Downing. I mean, we all know that they are/were the power behind the band in terms of songwriting (along with Rob Halford), but their writing and playing for Painkiller is something altogether different. Each song is a master class in metal guitar. And both of them are absolutely on fire throughout each song.

Think I’m kidding? Just check out “Metal Meltdown” which serves as the closing track on Side One of the album. Not that Judas Priest would ever do some kind of lovey-dovey power ballad, but man this song is just another example of how tuned in the band was to provide over the top power driven metal on Painkiller.

The second side of the album kicks off with the song “Night Crawler”. It’s funnier how it is one of the “slower” tracks on the album and yet it is still pretty much a full bore rocker.

Judas Priest follows that up with “Between the Hammer & the Anvil” which is again mainly a way for the fleet fingers of everyone involved musically to showcase just how speedy they can play. But thankfully, it’s not just that. It’s a solid song and the guitar solo is really cool!

The song “Touch of Evil” has a very cinematic quality to it. While it is still an uptempo rocker, this one plays more as a hard rock track as opposed to a full on metal number. It may be a little slower in tempo than other songs here but man, this is a track you can really sink your teeth into. I like the way it lets at least my imagination run with the notion that this song is the “point of entry” for a horror story or something. I’m not sure how I would’ve ranked this song back when I first bought the album but as I listened to it for this article, I think it has ended up becoming one of my favorites overall.

The instrumental “Battle Hymn” is just under a minute long and serves as kind of an extended intro for the closing number on Painkiller, “One Shot at Glory”. The instrumental is fine but in all honesty, I kind of forget that it is a separate track when listening to the album unless I’m looking directly at the track listing.

But man, once the “One Shot at Glory” track kicks off in full, you are in for a treat! This is one hell of a song. I don’t know if it is considered a true “anthem” track or not but as I listened, I was struck by how I could just imagine shouting out the song title when it appears in the lyrics. It’s a great way to wrap up the album and fully cements just how on point Judas Priest was for this release.

Here in 2023,  Judas Priest is putting together a new album. Guitarist Richie Faulkner has a new side project called Elegant Weapons that just recently released an album. And while he’s been out of the band for quite a long time, former guitarist K.K. Downing (who’s spent the past few years publicly whining every chance he gets about not being asked to rejoin the band) has his own project called K.K.’s Priest.

The lineup has changed a bit, but the band is still active and thriving. But they may have quite possibly hit one of their highest points with 1990’s Painkiller album. It’s just one powerful track after another and shows the band at one of the peaks of their creativity. It is simply one of the best Judas Priest albums ever.

NOTES OF INTEREST: The Painkiller album was certified gold in 1991. I don’t know if it has passed any other sales mark for further certifications in the 30 plus years since its original release.

The 2001 CD reissue of the album has a previously unreleased track called “Living Bad Dreams” and a live recording of “Leather Rebel” included as bonus tracks. I have that reissued version and while the live cut is fine if relatively unremarkable, the song “Living Bad Dreams” is almost meditative in nature for the song’s immediate opening. But it does get a bit more of an in-your-face in its delivery pretty quickly after that. It’s a pretty good song but because it is so different in tone from everything else on Painkiller, I think I understand why it didn’t make the cut for the original album release.

Current Deep Purple keyboardist Don Airey played keyboards on the song “Touch of Evil” and according to the album’s page on Wikipedia, he doubled the bass parts on most of the album’s tracks with a synthesizer.

The Swedish power metal band Sabaton included a cover of “All Guns Blazing” as a bonus track on their 2016 album The Last Stand. I’ve heard it a number of times and I can vouch for how good their version is as well.