JUDAS PRIEST — Sad Wings Of Destiny (review)

JUDAS PRIEST — Sad Wings Of Destiny album cover Album · 1976 · Heavy Metal Buy this album from MMA partners
5/5 ·
Stooge
I’ve often heard people describe Judas Priest as an overrated band. Usually when I ask someone having this viewpoint what Priest albums they’ve heard, they often will not have mentioned their second album, Sad Wings Of Destiny. I will often use Sad Wings as a reference point for potential Priest listeners because I believe this is a record truly worth being recognized, along with some of Sabbath’s work among other things, as an album that helped to give the heavy metal genre it’s sound.

This album starts with not just two of the most classic Judas Priest songs in “Victim Of Changes” and “The Ripper”; these are bona fide metal classics. “Victim” is propelled by the powerful rhythm guitar work of KK Downing and Glen Tipton with some solid backbeats and creative fills by drummer Alan Moore. While the guitar riffs continue to please with “The Ripper”, I’m more drawn towards the lead guitar work on this track, particularly with the melody played during the chorus. You can even hear a few “noise solos” in the background that bands such as Slayer adopted as part of their sound.

The next two tracks, “Dreamer Deceiver” and “Deceiver”, make for the highlight of the album. It’s great to hear bassist Ian Hill’s playing in a less restricted context, meshing well with the clean guitars and adding melody as opposed to simply serving as a pulse. Halford’s voice has never sounded as fantastic as it does here. I never remember which part of the song to associate the proper name to, but I usually just consider them one song (and it’s one of my favorites :)).

The brief “Prelude”, penned by Tipton, combines two rather basic piano and guitar parts rather beautifully. “Tyrant” brings up the tempo again, and has some outstanding harmony vocal lines, both parts being performed by Halford. The main riff is one of those instantly recognizable riffs, a precursor to “Breaking The Law”. While “Genocide” is the track I often give the least attention to, it fits well within the context of the album and is a cool song on it’s own, so it gets no complaints from me.

“Epitaph” is definitely not what I’d expect from Judas Priest. While it sounds more like a Queen song then a Priest tune, Halford’s voice is so beautiful on this ballad that it is easily deserving of more attention than it gets. The piano melody is also rather memorable. One of the most underrated Priest tracks without question. “Island Of Domination” fades in at the end of “Epitaph”, and is a great blues-based hard rock song. The slower pacing in the latter half of the song bring it to an appropriate conclusion.

While Sad Wings may not sound like a metal album throughout, I still consider this album as a must-have for fans of metal. 5 stars without question!!
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