JUDAS PRIEST — Ram It Down (review)

JUDAS PRIEST — Ram It Down album cover Album · 1988 · Heavy Metal Buy this album from MMA partners
4/5 ·
666sharon666
Originally conceived as the heavy half of the Twin Turbos concept, Ram It Down is Judas Priest's eleventh album and final 1980's record. It also brings to an end a period of line-up stability, with drummer Dave Holland experiencing health problems that led to his exit from the band. It's for this reason that some of Ram It Down uses a drum machine rather than a real drummer. There's definite resistance to the idea of a drum machine being used in metal (and not without good reason) which may go some way to explain why Ram It Down isn't exactly a well regarded Judas Priest album. Personally though I think it's quite overlooked within their discography.

But then again, that may be in part because I don't think the previous album Turbo is all that good, being one of my least favourite records from the band. Ram It Down on the other hand really injects the metal back into Judas Priest's sound, and to my ears is their most metal album up until that point, though it would be quickly superseded by Painkiller a couple of years later. Okay, so it's not the best bunch of songs Judas Priest ever put together on record by a long shot, but it's pretty far ahead of being a bad album. The title track and Hard as Iron (a power metal song) are two of the best here. I also really like their cover of Chuck Berry's Johnny B. Goode even if it is an unusual choice for a metal band. It would unfair not to at least give a mention to Blood Red Skies too. Overall not the best album Judas Priest ever did, but far from the worst too. Faulted yet underrated at the same time.

Attribution: http://metaltube.freeforums.org/judas-priest-ram-it-down-t3833.html
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Unitron wrote:
more than 2 years ago
This is a really underrated album, I'm guessing that's because of the masterpiece that came after :-)
siLLy puPPy wrote:
more than 2 years ago
Ram it down ram it down straight to the heart of this town
yeah dave holland kept this from being a hetter album but still some great tracks

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