JUDAS PRIEST — Rocka Rolla (review)

Album · 1974 · Hard Rock

3/5 · 2013-04-27
voila_la_scorie

I tend to sympathize with the underdog and I do so with this album as well. I actually quite like it. Though not as good as many of Priest's albums, I prefer its seventies proto-metal/progressive hard rock sound to many of their later albums.

I first acquired "Rocka Rolla" in the guise of a double cassette called "Hero Hero", which included the entire album plus most of "Sad Wings of Destiny" and an early version of the cover song "Diamonds and Rust". At the time I favoured heavier tracks such as "Tyrant" and "Victim of Changes" from "Sad Wings" but I still enjoyed certain parts of the "Rocka Rolla" songs. Eventually I bought both albums in full on a two-disk compilation, but when I read reviews about remastering quality I went and bought both disks again, this time individually. Shortly after, a Japanese super high quality pressing was released at a much higher price. I was tempted but held back. Not yet.

The album intrigues me because it is similar to Metallica's "Kill 'em All" in that a new band member had taken over for a founding member (Halford taking over for Atkins and Hammett taking over for Mustaine) and so a lot of the former members' contributions were used both on the debuts and on the sophomores. In particular, I found it interesting when I read Atkins say that in the early seventies he characterized Priest's music as progressive heavy blues-based rock. I would go as far as to say that this album is not only a proto-metal album but a proto-progressive metal album. Consider the three-part "Winter" mini-suite, the extended "Run of the Mill" and the two-part "Dying to Meet You". Not to mention the 14-minute "Caviar and Meths" which was, according to what I have read, shortened to two minutes because the management of Tony Iommi's company who signed the band didn't think the full instrumental (which they had been playing live for a few years already) wasn't good for the album.

The shorter tracks show Priest still emerging from a hard rock type outfit that hadn't immersed their sound in full on metal as they began to do on the next album. "One for the Road," "Rocka Rolla," and "Cheater" are still good taken in the context of where Priest were coming from and not where they were ultimately headed.

The album receives much flack partly for its uncharacteristic style in the Priest catalogue and also for its poor recording quality, something that remastering can only go so far to fix. Rob Halford himself said that "it sounds like it was recorded in a garbage can". The band do not have fond memories of their days with Gull Records where they felt their recordings were not given the love and care they deserved. It was the Gull reps who actually suggested getting a fifth member (prior to Tipton's hiring) and one rep said they should get a pianist or saxophonist! Interestingly, they almost got the pianist as Tipton's musical background included training on classical piano - listen for the piano and synthesizer on the band's first two albums for Tipton's skill with the keys.

So, to reiterate, I actually quite like this album even though the recording quality needed a lot of help. I understand that many fans of Judas Priest will not like this album because it is so different. But in a way, like the first Rush album captures what the band had been doing up until Neil Peart's joining, "Rocka Rolla" gives us an insight to how Judas Priest sounded during the early seventies when they were struggling to get that elusive record deal.