Year Of Metal #050: Judas Priest - Sin After Sin
There’s a pattern emerging: the more I dread something going in, the better it turns out to be. I have of course been aware of Judas Priest since not long after I started getting into music. They’re a bonafide Big Deal, especially when it comes to metal and especially British heavy metal. And I suppose I’d filed them under not for me, alongside Maiden et al.
1977’s Sin After Sin, then, was a lovely surprise. Like few other heavy metal albums I’ve listened to from around this time, it actually manages to take the hard rock sound and add genuine grit and oomph to it. A lot of that’s down to Rob Halford, whose vocals are spot on. He doesn’t go for power, but fills his vocals with bite and intent. He’s believable as a hard living, devil racing man of action. He’s also a pioneering dude, one of the earliest openly gay metal singers, and he’s still going strong. Good luck to him.
“Sinner” serves as a great introduction to the band’s fun loving and more sinister sides. The first few minutes are a rocking stomp with great choruses and Halford’s gruff vocals all over the track. At the halfway point, the metre changes to a tension-inducing shuffle as we’re treated to a creeping, echoing solo, and they maintain that darkness and drive for the rest of the tune. For me there’s the perfect mix of showmanship and genuinely effective edge. If I’ve harped on previously about metal being too silly or too serious, this might just be the perfect middle ground.
To hammer that point home, they’re straight into a cover of Joan Baez’s “Diamonds And Rust”. It’s a testament to Priest that the rendition doesn’t sound at all out of place; sometimes cutting a version of a great track can shine a harsh light on your own songwriting chops, but that’s not the case here. This is no novelty metal version of a gentle folk song; it’s respectful but not overly reverent. Baez supposedly gave it her nod of approval, and quite right too.
It’s a brilliantly structured record. They tear through the pacy opener, really win you round with the cover, then slow it down a bit before the big set piece “Let Us Prey / Call For The Priest”. It’s a sprawling, complex oddity that thunders from section to section, never losing control of itself. The record was produced by the band and Roger Glover from Deep Purple; you can tell there’s someone who really knows what he’s doing with his hand at the tiler. Unlike Accept, none of this sounds like screwing around; these are songs that have been honed and sculpted, but still feel lively.
Sin After Sin is about as wild as you can run with heavy metal before it starts to sound plain daft or excessive for the sake of it. The balance of gleeful exuberance, cheek, and raw power makes this a real winner. It stops a little short of being genuinely cool because of course it does, but it’s no wonder this lot have stood the test of time. It’s a formula that truly works.
