GUITAR SOLO REACTIONS ~ KK'S PRIEST ~ The Sinner Rides Again

KK and Ripper have a new song, my first time hearing anything form the band. #kkdowning #guitar #riff #guitarperformance #reaction #metalguitarriffs #guitarsolo #reactionchannel #guitarist

[@hemlock399]

KK's first composition was "Run of The Mill" from Priest's first album, Rocka Rolla. It's quite possibly my favourite song by any band, period. I did a quick survey of Priest album writing credits according to Wikipedia. What I see for the 70s albums is that although quite a few songs are credited to "Halford, Downing, Tipton" (Halford gets writing credits on almost every track, undoubtedly for lyrics and vocal melodies), when any of the three is left out, it's almost always Downing, so Tipton had a lot more writing credits. From the 80s on, whenever those 3 are in the band, they are all credited for all original tracks, and after Downing left, Faulkner simply replaced Downing in the writing credits. During the Ripper years, for Jugulator, Tipton got credit for all lyrics, and Tipton & Downing shared credit for music, for Demolition, Tipton got credit on every song, Downing got credit on 5 of 13 songs, and some songs were co-written by Tipton and someone else. I discovered Judas Priest when I was a teen in the mid-80s, and they were my favourite band for many years. They are probably still my favourite band overall, and Halford is still my favourite vocalist of all time. However, I definitely think that they did their best work before Turbo. Not that Turbo is terrible - it's an excellent album overall - but the use of metal tropes in lyrics became cringey on that album, and that has been a problem ever since. Also, they never regained the creativity of their early period - which is of course entirely natural. Almost by definition, the music became more stereotypically metal, not unlike the lyrics. This song fits those critical remarks perfectly, IMO. My favourite currently active band is Jinjer. I've probably commented on all of your Jinjer reactions to date.

[@GuitarSoloReactions]

What did you think of Firepower? My first Judas Priest record was British Steel then Hell Bent for Leather and then Unleashed in the East. So I too have been listening to them since the 80’s, however I would pick Black Sabbath as my No.1 from the old guard of metal with Judas Priest as 2nd.

[@hemlock399]

@GuitarSoloReactions I had to double-check that I own Firepower (and I do), so that gives you an idea of how strong an impression it made on me. I rank Sabbath's first few albums higher than anything Priest put out, but IMO, the quality of their albums fell off fairly sharply. By contrast, I'd say that Priest improved with every album throughout the 70s, and stayed at a pretty high level through the 1st half of the 80s. So I rank Priest above Sabbath. I also prefer Zep over Sabbath overall, even though they are obviously not metal. I should give Firepower another chance now that you mention it.

[@hemlock399]

@GuitarSoloReactions My 1st exposure to Priest was Screaming for Vengeance, which I found in my brother's record collection. I was 14 or 15 at the time, and it made one hell of an impression on me! I bought The Best of Judas Priest through Columbia Record Club. If memory serves, all of the songs on that compilation are from Rocka Rolla and Sad Wings. I was *shocked* at how different those songs were from Screaming. But once I opened my mind a bit, I started to *really* love that stuff, so I bought up the back catalogue.

[@hemlock399]

Now that I think of it, I'm quite sure that "Diamonds and Rust" is on The Best of JP, and that cover was first released on Sin After Sin. I think the rest of the songs come from Rocka Rolla and Sad Wings.

[@GuitarSoloReactions]

Firepower is more anthemic and reminds me of Hell Bent for Leather and British Steel. Priest lost me after Screaming For Vengeance, I still listened, just much of the following recording till Firepower. Every record after SFV has at least one good song, however Turbo was the last straw.

[@TimothySchulting]

If you think Ripper sounds like King Diamond here, look up Ripper doing Abigail live.

[@olegyd]

On 5.15 last part of KK solo just amazing! And he finished with very interesting mediator string grinding. Just wow only that moment is more innovative that all Ritchie solos on 2 last Robs Priest albums 2 albums. Ritchie very faceless and empty, boring guitar player, no any interesting ideas everything he play is juat plogiat of others.

[@GuitarSoloReactions]

Thanks for commenting.

[@MaryYama-bb5ml]

Pussy​@@GuitarSoloReactions