Review Summary: With stellar production, great performances and 10 brilliant songs. Painkiller will be remembered as Priests magnum opus.
It may be hard to believe, but in 1988, after the release of Ram It Down, people commented at how Priest tried to sound like all the new speed and thrash bands coming out at the time, but failed to come close to Metallica's And Justice For All or Slayer's South Of Heaven (all released in 1988). This was a wake up call to the band as only 8 years prior they were praised for being able to run with the young guns of the New Wave Of British Heavy Metal, and yet now people thought they were stupid to even think they could compete with Bands like Slayer or Metallica.
Until the band released Painkiller and everyone who had criticized
the band before were left picking there jaw of the floor. There arnt many bands who can say that there 12th album is there best, but Priest are one of them. Whats interesting about the album is that Priest dont just forget everything they have done in the 80s and become a Fast, Aggressive, Metallica clone. Instead they fuse there prog/hard rock style of the 70s and there heavy metal style of the 80s and mix in some speed metal influence, all to give us what I consider a classic metal album.
The first track on the album is Painkiller, and although this is a fantastic track, with new drummer Scott Travis's drum solo at the begginging and Robs vocals reaching extremely high notes, it is very misleading as it's the fastest and heaviest track on the album. This in no way means the other tracks are bad, but dont expect anything like this track for the rest of the album.
The rest of tracks on the album all have there own feel, Night Crawler has a nice atmospheric sound of thunder at the begginging and a cool spoken part in the middle as well. All Guns Blazing has Rob screaming the first couple of lines of the first verse before the guitars kick in, then he sings the same line (doesn't sound cool until you actually hear it). Touch Of Evil has the sound of bells ringing at the begginging and an awesome guitar line which repeats throughout the song. Other songs such as Metal Meltdown and One Shot At Glory arnt as strong as the rest, but they arnt bad song at all ( even if the chorus to Metal Meltdown is a flood of cheese).
The vocals are one of the main highlights of the album. Rob Halford proves why he is considered metal's best vocalist, with screams reaching the heavens and singing that is just breathtaking (check out Painkiller and Touch Of Evil for some amazing screams and singing). KK Downing and Glenn Tipton are, for lack of a better word, unreal on this album. The solos are fast, furious and melodic and unlike other bands at the time who just tacked on solos for the sake of there solos ( Metallica, im looking at you) every solo sounds like it was written for the song and it shows because every solo flows really well with its respective song. The drums sound fantastic and Scott Travis uses the double kick drum to great effect, keeping a fast rhythm for the band to play to. Ian Hill sadly is non existent on this album, which is to be expected from a guitar based band like Priest.
With stellar production, great performances and 10 brilliant songs. Painkiller will be remembered as Priests magnum opus.
