Author: Aleš Podbrežnik
Artist: Judas Priest
Label: Columbia Records
Released: 1978
Length: 45:41
Rating: 3.5/5
“Killing Machine” is the record where Judas Priest dropped complexity altogether and gave in to raw, balls-out bangers. You can forget about songs like Victim Of Changes, Sinner or Beyond The Realms Of Death right away.
Within a single year, Judas Priest put out two pretty different albums. Besides the stylistic leap, there’s a production leap too: “Killing Machine” was produced by James Guthrie, whom the band were very happy with after his work on Better By You, Better Than Me (“Stained Class” was produced entirely by Dennis Mackay, apart from that one track). “Killing Machine” sounds even crisper than its predecessor, the highs and lows are even more distinct, the sonic contrasts bigger, the overall sound fuller and deeper. What matters most is that Mackay managed to wring out of the band, more convincingly, the thing Judas Priest had been craving all along: to sound outrageously harsh and loud. And that’s where “Killing Machine” is the definitive upgrade over “Stained Class”. Sure, Judas Priest sacrificed a bit of sophistication, but the tighter, more compact, simpler songs on the new record only amplified the punch and directness of their whole being. On top of all that, this excellent remaster gives you an even more precise riffing foundation across the entire record, which is especially noticeable in the transitions and during the guitar solo shredding. The synthesizers in Before The Dawn are also far more expressive and atmospheric.
The 2001 remaster comes with two bonus tracks: an early version of Rock Hard, Ride Free (originally released on “Defenders Of The Faith”, 1984) called Fight For Your Life, with the same verses and pre-chorus but a completely different chorus, a few different transitions and guitar solos, plus a “live” bit of shrapnel, Ride Like A Wind, originally released in 1982 on “Screaming For Vengeance”. Some of you might, like me, be bothered by having both songs on this record, since chronologically they don’t follow the band’s evolution, but they’re undoubtedly indispensable in the CD collection of any Judas Priest fan.
This album has it all. Effective bangers like the fantastic, terrorizing opening aggressor Delivering The Goods, the crumbling Rock Forever and Running Wild, and of course the cannonball that is Hell Bent For Leather (that was the original title of the album’s US release). The mid-tempo stuff shows up in the erotic Burnin’ Up and Evil Fantasies, and in the title track, whose obscure lyrics are about our boundless whoring after money. One of the melodic highlights is the commercial-sounding Evening Star, simple but effective, played on the first take. No way they’d go without an anthemic Take On The World either, and once again they showed off their genius feel for covers. This time they chose a Fleetwod Mac classic, The Green Manalishi (With The Two-Pronged Crown). The song is tragic by nature, as schizoid as its author, the “Anglo-blues” master Peter Green, truly was in the years he wrote it, and in the hands of Judas Priest it sounds downright vampirically wicked on top of that. Judas Priest also contributed the sadly tender acoustic ballad Before The Dawn, which keeps a real link to the seventies, so the album’s contrasts are properly pronounced.
To their roar, which had become an indelible trademark, they added leather. Studded leather and chains. The idea of leather is said to have been brought into the band by none other than Rob Halford, straight out of the nightly disco gay clubs. Leather wasn’t exactly new on stage, mind you. Alice Cooper and Kiss had dressed up in it before Judas Priest. But Kiss were still so “unreal” on stage in their getup, like some kind of perfect aliens, and Alice Cooper, on the other hand, looked like an occasional crazy harlequin. Judas Priest, though, actually bewitched the crowd with their leather image, because they brought their new fashion, combined with devastating guitar chopping, to the masses without any restraint and in an insanely simple way. On stage they looked “of the people”, like street kids who had just come to take what was theirs. They showed the masses that you can pick the forbidden fruit and get away with it. And on that front too, Judas Priest’s popularity started to climb steeply.
All the pieces on “Killing Machine” fit together perfectly. The album is marked by outstanding dynamics, and the songs offer different moods of high atmosphere. Anger and rage, sadness, love,…and all of it radiates an incredible glow and the will to “be what you feel like being”. This band always won people over with honesty and courage. Priest have always experimented fearlessly, and across their whole history it’s hard to find two albums where you couldn’t detect a positive step forward.
Judas Priest were on the verge of catapulting themselves among the immortal names of rock music. “Killing Machine” captures the mindset of a band approaching the peak of its powers, with incredible creative drive and an energetic charge radiated by the band’s chemistry. When the hearts of all the members were truly in the same thing (the lyrics of Rock Forever say it all). And once you realize that with strong will you can make any dream come true, no obstacle on earth can stop you on the way to your goal. Judas Priest were simply on the right path, and at that moment they realized it more than ever. While the discos were full of hot sweaty bodies moving to the beats of Boney M, Tina Turner and the Bee Gees, and the stubborn virus of a freak called punk had long since devoured the giants of early-seventies prog, the embryo of a new musical dimension was slowly getting ready to crawl into the world. The moment of explosion and of the great heavy metal resurrection was approaching, and after it the world was never the same again.
Lineup
Rob Halford – vocals
K.K. Downing – guitar
Glenn Tipton – guitar
Ian Hill – bass
Les Binks – drums
Production
James Guthrie & Judas Priest
Track list
1. Delivering The Goods
2. Rock Forever
3. Evening Star
4. Hell Bent For Leather
5. Take On The World
6. Burnin’ Up
7. The Green Manalishi (With The Two-Pronged Crown)
8. Killing Machine
9. Running Wild
10. Before The Dawn
11. Evil Fantasies
BONUS TRACKS ON THE 2001 REMASTERED EDITION
12. Fight For Your
13. Riding In The Wind (Live)
Album length: 45:50
