JUDAS PRIEST — Rocka Rolla (review)

Album · 1974 · Hard Rock

4/5 · 2010-03-31
Certif1ed

Progressive...

There's not much that's Traditional about Judas Priest's first vinyl outing - they were quite clearly trying to do something that fitted in with the general Prog Rock trends of the time, and were somewhat outside of their own comfort zones.

With Rodger Bain at the controls, this sounds like a kind of weird, noodly version of Black Sabbath - unsurprising, given that Bain had previously worked with that other famous Brummie band, and Priest were managed by Iommi's Management company.

Despite having formed in 1969 - shortly after Sabbath - it took Priest 5 years to get to this point, supporting acts like Budgie (Bain also produced Budgie's Squawk LP, it is interesting to note!) and Thin Lizzy, whose influences show strongly. Indeed, the twin-barrelled guitar approach was to become a Priest feature. The main reason it took so long seems to be DECCA-owned Gull's reluctance to release the material, and Bain's domineering production methods.

The album's main weak point is also its greatest charm; It was recorded "live" rather than each musician separately, and the band synergy really shines through - at the expense of feeling rather loose and sloppy in places.

One thing to note is John Hinch's drumming, especially the double bass drum work, which impresses, especially given the year of release.

Bain's savage hackery of "Caviar and Meths" remains a crime against Progressive Metal music - this 14 minute epic was pruned back to within a whisker of its life, coming in at a staggeringly short 2 minutes or so.

The album opens with some chicken-pickin' riffing, which turns into a nice headbanger pretty quickly - in 5/4. The song is nicely performed, and the instruments all sound great - but the yawns settle in fairly quickly, as the song begins to get robotically repetitive.

I am strongly reminded in much of this of the German band Jeronimo, whose 1971 self-titled album is surely a seminal work for the Heavy Metal genre. Indeed, Jeronimo spent some time supporting Steppenwolf on tour, and had a significant impact on the European charts, despite sinking quickly into obscurity.

Things get a bit more familiar with the title track - those trademark shifting chords over a chugging pedal signal the birth of the Priest style, and the quasi-classical guitar fanfare following the chorususing those twin guitars heralds such great numbers to come as Exciter. This otherwise unremarkable song ends before it gets too boring.

One thing I'm really digging about this remaster is that Tipton's synth lines have been brought forward in the mix, and they really make a difference to the overall ambience of the pieces.

The next three tracks continue with Priest's progressive leanings - the track titles are not similar by pure co-incidence, they were intended to be part of a suite, and they do follow on from each other very nicely. There's some really whacked-out whammy bar dive-bombs and feedback experimentation on "Winter" which verges on the indulgent - but all the better to turn that sucker up, I say!

The mood is mellowed for Deep Freeze, which uses soft-sixth jazz-like chords in an almost Camel-like manner, before Winter Retreat kicks in with a bit more of what we might think of as the traditional Priest sound - but with influence that surely comes from Sabbath's debut. Downing's lead guitar work begins to show some originality in the lines somehow - despite sticking mainly around the minor pentatonic, he adds a character that seems to break away from the blues.

The Led Zep/Sabbath inspired Cheater follows somewhat unremarkably, with another mid-tempo head-nodder following in Never Satisfied. The most notable thing about this song is the riff which kicks in around 2:00. I lost count trying to figure out the time sig - but if time sigs are your bag, then this is right up your street!

Run Of The Mill is anything but - it's a Sabbath doom tempo piece, really showcasing Halford's versatility and awesome vocal tone for which he is rightly famous - and, of course, the versatility of the rest of the band. It also seems very Wishbone Ash inspired - but has many twists of its own, and would have been an interesting path for Priest to have followed in ensuing years with its strong dynamic and sense of pathos. This is an 8-minuter which never bores - and that epic, virtually symphonic, Purple inspired ending is payback in itself for listening all the way through at top volume.

Dying to Meet You begins in a similar vein, cool, with the time sigs changing all over the place, and more changes, from Sabbath riffs to Wishbone Ash jangliness - and is Halford putting on a kind of Zappa tone deliberately?

The instrumental Caviar and Meths rounds things off - like I said earlier, cutting it back to 2 minutes... what was Bain thinking of?

In summary, a superb album for fans of Classic Hard Rock, an essential for Priest collectors, naturally, and one for Metal historians - but an album that will confuse the hell out of most Metal fans, I'd wager.

In summary, patchy, but when it's good, it's awesome and rocks as hard as you'd expect Priest to. Just takes a few listens.