JUDAS PRIEST — British Steel (review)

JUDAS PRIEST — British Steel album cover Album · 1980 · Heavy Metal Buy this album from MMA partners
1.5/5 ·
SouthSideoftheSky
Metal gods go Pop!

British Steel might be Judas Priest’s most well-known album and this is really sad as it is one of their least good albums ever, in my opinion! Following the already disappointing Killing Machine, the band further streamlined their sound with this album and songs like Breaking The Law and particularly Living After Midnight are as commercial as they ever got. They even made music videos to some songs from this album with the Breaking The Law video being especially funny, but incredibly dated. These two songs are among the most widely known Judas Priest songs and this might be one of the primary reasons for this albums (in my opinion, entirely undeserved) status as a ‘classic’. Like with most great bands, their biggest ‘hits’ are almost never among their better songs.

Admittedly there are a couple of good songs on this album too, most notably Metal Gods. But I cannot help but feel that everything that is good about British Steel is such that they had already done it better on earlier albums and everything that is bad about it is just bad! Rapid Fire opens this album and though having a powerful verse and rhythm, that is basically all it comes to! It feels underdeveloped. Metal Gods follows and, as I said, this is the album’s best song. Grinder is a pretty good song too, but like most songs on this album it somehow feels oversimplified in comparison to the often quite elaborated early Priest output. United is basically a carbon copy of Take On The World from the previous album and has the very same Arena Rock sound and feel; clearly designed as an arena anthem.

It is now that the album really loses its power, You Don’t Have To Be Old To Be Wise manages to be boring and cheesy at the same time and Living After Midnight is just a total embarrassment. The latter is Pop Metal! The Rage and Steeler are, on the other hand, decent songs but it is too late now to save this album from mediocrity. One major problem is that most songs have the same sound and there is a serious lack of diversity on this album. I also constantly have the feeling that I’ve heard this before. British Steel seems to be a product of a stagnant and rather one-dimensional band.

I find this album very overrated and actually one of the least good albums in Judas Priest’s entire discography. It is sad that many people take this to be representative of the band as a whole when they made so much better music both before and after this one.
Share this review
more

Review Comments

Post a public comment below | Send private message to the reviewer
Please login to post a shout
No shouts posted yet. Be the first member to do so above!

Review Index

Member Zone

Username:
Password:
Stay signed in

Metal Subgenres

Artists Alpha-index

MMA TOP 5 Metal ALBUMS

Rating by members, ranked by custom algorithm
Albums with 30 ratings and more
Master of Puppets Thrash Metal
METALLICA
Buy this album from our partners
Paranoid Heavy Metal
BLACK SABBATH
Buy this album from our partners
Moving Pictures Hard Rock
RUSH
Buy this album from our partners
Powerslave NWoBHM
IRON MAIDEN
Buy this album from our partners
Rising Heavy Metal
RAINBOW
Buy this album from our partners

New Metal Artists

New Metal Releases

Oud Zeer Atmospheric Sludge Metal
ONTAARD
Buy this album from MMA partners
Oud Zeer Sludge Metal
THROWING BRICKS
Buy this album from MMA partners
War. Metal Related
WHORES.
Buy this album from MMA partners
The First Breath Is The Beginning Of Death Sludge Metal
IDIOT CHILD
Buy this album from MMA partners
Morbid Curiosities Sludge Metal
LUURCH
Buy this album from MMA partners
More new releases

New Metal Online Videos

Agremorta - Adrocitas (Official Lyric Video)
AGREMORTA
Bosh66· 1 day ago
Agremorta - Ploratus Umbra (Official Lyric Video)
AGREMORTA
Bosh66· 1 day ago
Agremorta - Vertex Membrana (Official Lyric Video)
AGREMORTA
Bosh66· 1 day ago
HAIL SPIRIT NOIR - The Temple Of Curved Space (Official Track Stream)
HAIL SPIRIT NOIR
adg211288· 1 day ago
In Sulfur - The Gate (OFFICIAL VIDEO) 2022
IN SULFUR
Bosh66· 2 days ago
More videos

New MMA Metal Forum Topics

More in the forums

New Site interactions

More...

Latest Metal News

members-submitted

More in the forums

Social Media

Follow us
Follow us on Twitter Become a Facebook fan RSS Feed