Ian Hill

Judas Priest, the heavy metal legends whose influence on generations of musicians and metalheads is incalculable, celebrate their 40th year as recording artists with the global cinema release of the live concert EPITAPH. Epitaph is a great place to get all the Judas Priest classics that you know and love in one collection – live of course. The Priest is Back!

Early 90s and still hitting it hard, this is top-shelf LKJ. Some of the harder edges may have softened, just a bit, since his ‘Forces of Victory’ days but the trade-off is a broader sonic palette on the arrangements. The first track features a violin solo, and the recording features a variety of woodwinds, brass, pianos, B3 organ, and accordions. Whether or not the similarity to Brazilian forró on the track “Di Good Life” is purely coincidental, I can’t say. “Mi Revalueshanary Fren” is a highlight here, easily the funkiest reflection on the early-90s state of post-Soviet radical politics and black liberation you’re likely to encounter. Incidentally, the following year LKJ would publish a book of his poems with the same title that would go on to become (in the mid-2000s) one of the only Penguin Classic editions of a still-living poet.

Sin After Sin is the third album by the British heavy metal group Judas Priest, released in 1977. It was the band's first album on Columbia Records after their contract with Gull Records was terminated, as a consequence of which they lost all rights to Rocka Rolla and Sad Wings of Destiny, and any other demo recordings made during the production of the two albums. This album featured the drum work of a young and upcoming session drummer, Simon Phillips, who was only 19 at the time of recording. The record features a cover of Joan Baez's "Diamonds & Rust", a track that would become a live favourite from then onwards. The album was remastered in 2001, with two bonus tracks added. One of the bonus tracks "Race With The Devil" was at first intended to take the place of "Diamonds & Rust" but their producer, Roger Glover (of Deep Purple fame), wanted them to switch to "Diamonds & Rust", saying that "It would fit along with the rest of the album better."

Judas Priest's METALOGY, an impressive four-CD behemoth of a box set that also includes a bonus DVD, proved a fitting tribute to a band celebrating its 30th anniversary in 2004. Kudos to the creative team whose use of studded trim and faux leather texture in the packaging is fitting for a group whose visual legacy is inextricably linked to their own S&M/biker apparel. As impressive as the outside of this package is, the music contained within is more important, especially when you consider that this Birmingham outfit laid down many of heavy metal's stylistic touchstones…