Welcome to another edition of From My Collection. What a great week it is to be a traditional metalhead! First a new Bruce Dickinson album and now we’re roughly a day and a half away from the release of a new Judas Priest album? Bring it on! To commemorate the occasion, this week’s edition of FMC goes back in time 40 years to 1984. Metal reigns supreme and Judas Priest are its steadfast messengers, spreading the gospel of screaming vocals, twin guitars, and deafening volume via rock radio, MTV, and packed arenas. It’s been a long way to the top, but they’ve made it, and are now ready to celebrate the triumph with the album that encapsulates everything great about both Priest and metal: Defenders of the Faith. Join us now as Defenders of the Faith tackles its namesake!
Fun fact: Defenders of the Faith, as in the webzine you’re reading right now (not the album), was not originally to be named such. No, our original moniker was set to be Rapid Fire Reviews. This was scrapped at the 11th hour because, at the time, there was a small tape label also named Rapid Fire (in homage to Priest as well), and I didn’t want to cause any trouble. Well, now it’s 2024, none of you nerds who spent your paychecks on tapes from 2018 to 2020 care anymore, and I can’t find a single trace of Rapid Fire Tapes anywhere online, so I guess the joke’s on me. That said, everything happens for a reason.
Mere hours before this webzine was set to go live, yours truly was scrambling to think of another Priest related name for this new outlet. Painkiller Press? No. Hell Bent for Metal? No. The Savage Scribe? Close, but still no. It was none other than our old pal Dom “Pall Bearer” Vaia, bassist for death metal mutants Molder, who made the suggestion that stuck: Defenders of the Faith. How did I not think of this?! After all, it is my favorite Priest album. And the ethos of this album so perfectly pairs with my personal vision for this webzine: “We are Defenders of the Faith!”
So what is it about Defenders that makes it forever #1 in my heart? Well, like most great bands, Priest’s catalog covers a wide variety of sounds and moods. How I feel on any given day largely impacts which Priest album I want to turn on. If I’m in a serious, sophisticated state of mind, I’ll put on Sad Wings of Destiny (1976). Pissed off and angry with the world? Painkiller (1990). Wired and ready for a hedonistic night on the town? It’s Turbo (1986) time! And while I love each and every one of these albums (even Turbo), it’s Defenders I return to time and time again.
To put it bluntly, Defenders makes me proud to be a metalhead. It’s such a stylistically diverse album, running the gamut of nearly every approach Priest had tackled up until that point, yet cohesive, each cut seamlessly flowing from one to the next. It so shamelessly embodies the spirit of metal at the time, before the barrage of subgenres and individual scenes came into play. Everyone was united (pun fully intended) by the power of metal, and were sure to let you know so in the loudest, boldest, and brashest way possible. Forget songs; these were anthems.
Defenders opens with a high speed ode to, well, driving at high speed, “Freewheel Burning”. Kicking off their albums with a neck-snapping rager is a tradition Priest established going back to “Exciter” opening Stained Class, followed by “Rapid Fire” on British Steel. On “Freewheel Burning”, the method remains the same, albeit this time bolstered by a slick, forward-thinking ’80s metal production, courtesy of Tom Allom. Expanding upon the approach of Screaming for Vengeance (1982), Defenders sounds like it was recorded in a jam packed arena, which I’ve long believed makes a large part of these songs’ individual character.
Before we even find a moment to breathe after “Freewheel Burning”, the rampage continues with “Jawbreaker”. At the time, naïve teenage metalheads likely chalked this song’s subject matter to being about some sort of fantastical sci-fi creation of Priest’s imagination. After all, we’ve already been introduced to “Exciter” and “Metal Gods”. Who’s to say “Jawbreaker” wasn’t part of this mythological universe as well? Granted, today we know this is anything but the case, with “Jawbreaker” being one of the many Priest classics that flirted heavily with gay sexual innuendo.
And yet as a heterosexual male having sung this song a million times and then some, I don’t feel weird about it at all. “Jawbreaker” is what I would consider to be a perfect metal song, if there ever was one. The arrangement, the guitar solos, the lyrics, the energy, and those unforgettable Halford screams at the end are utter perfection. It is undisputedly Priest, the way this whole album is undisputedly Priest. If nothing else, Defenders is hands down the most Priest Priest album, if that makes any sense.
Side A meets its first midtempo track with the unsung anthem, “Rock Hard, Ride Free”. From a lyrical perspective, this has to be one of the most clever Priest songs ever written, the whole thing essentially being one giant triple innuendo. There’s the biker side of it, with Priest being synonymous with motorcycle culture since the release of “Hell Bent for Leather”. It’s as if Priest are urging their fellow motorcyclists to “Rock hard, ride free, all your life”. Don’t stop for anyone. Then there’s the metalhead side of it. At a time when metalheads were being persecuted by political and religious authorities alike, “Rock Hard, Ride Free” was a rallying cry to this disenfranchised youth.
Finally, there is, yet again, the sexual aspect. I don’t have to go too deep (no pun intended) into detail about how “Rock Hard, Ride Free” can be perceived from this angle. However, whereas “Jawbreaker” can be perceived as sleazy and lustful, “Rock Hard, Ride Free” comes off as some sort of LGBT liberation anthem. Again, context is everything, and you have to keep the era in mind. Halford goes into great detail about his struggles with homosexuality as a metal singer in the ’80s, a decade whose culture was dominated by the polar opposite, and how said struggles impacted the musical and lyrical direction of Priest, in his autobiography, Confess. If you haven’t read it already, I highly recommend it.
Closing out Defenders‘ first half is my personal favorite Priest song of all time, “The Sentinel”. Unlike “Jawbreaker”, this is undisputedly a fantasy themed Priest epic. Set in a dystopian wasteland in the not so distant future, the song chronicles a creature who’s “sworn to avenge” and “condemn to hell”. “Tempt not the blade, all fear the sentinel”. This fear is all the more believable when set to a riveting soundtrack of fist-pumping riffs courtesy of Glenn Tipton and K.K. Downing, a rapid tempo, an ominous quiet passage, and the soaring vocals of Halford, all leading up to a dramatic finish.
Once we process the metallic shock of side A, it’s off to side B which opens with one of the horniest Priest songs ever, “Love Bites”. Dominated by lustful lyrics, nocturnal atmosphere, and an earworm chorus, it’s no surprise this cut found its way to MTV, rightfully chosen as one of the album’s singles. In many ways, I feel “Love Bites” foreshadows the musical and lyrical themes that would be explored on Turbo, especially with its blatantly commercial disposition, but that’s another essay for another day.
The sex-crazed lamentations continue on a song of opposite musical, yet equally erotic, disposition, “Eat Me Alive”. Musically, “Eat Me Alive” channels the speed and aggression of the opening “Freewheel Burning”, yet perhaps even more violently and, dare I say, in a thrash adjacent manner? Admittedly, thrash wouldn’t fully influence Priest’s sound until Painkiller, so this latter observation is a bit of a stretch. That said, this brutal banger caught the attention of many ears, including one Mrs. Tipper Gore who featured it on her infamous Filthy 15 list. If she thought “Eat Me Alive” was bad, imagine if she read deep enough into “Raw Deal”!
From there, it’s off to arguably the quintessential arena metal song, “Some Heads Are Gonna Roll”. Everything about this, from the chorus and riffs, to the driving drums and lyrics, were tailormade for crowds of 10,000 and greater, which makes sense considering Priest’s draw at the time. They wanted to make songs that would have the kid in the last row of the balcony nosebleeds as invested in the show as the kid right against the barrier, and they did. In many ways, “Some Heads Are Gonna Roll” feels like a musical follow up to “You’ve Got Another Thing Comin'”, but even better.
This brings us to what I hold firm to be the most underrated song on Defenders, and one of the most underrated songs in the Priest catalog for that matter, “Night Comes Down”. Although metal ruled the roost in ’84, there was still a handful of AOR bands dominating the charts as well, serving as an alternative for kids who wanted to rock, but were turned off by the ghoulish imagery of Iron Maiden and Ozzy Osbourne. Survivor, Bryan Adams, and Foreigner all released blockbuster albums this year, each boasting a boatload of hit singles to go with it.
What does this melodic, accessible side of hard rock have to do with the mighty Priest? Well, the “Metal Gods” attempted their hand at AOR yet again (It was first experimented with on Screaming for Vengeance with “(Take These) Chains” and “Fever)…and they nail it. There’s a raw emotion to Halford’s vocals and lyrics on “Night Comes Down” that hits us straight in the heart. You can feel the pain in his delivery when he belts out that chorus of, “When the night comes down and I’m here all alone.” Had this been released as a single, there’s no doubt in my mind it would at least crack the top 10.
Rounding out this celebration of all things metal is the aptly titled “Heavy Duty” and title track. Admittedly, there isn’t much musically to offer here. They’re steady, repetitive, and fashioned in the vein of “Take On the World” and “United” before them: Heavy metal soccer chants. That said, simplistic as they are, they too showcase a side of Priest that’s as important as all the other sides showcased on Defenders, and serve as a fitting larger than life finish to a larger than life album.
Unsurprisingly, Defenders was yet another creative and commercial triumph for Priest, selling over a million copies in the States alone and leading them through another sold out arena tour. Fast forward 40 years later and the anticipation of a new Priest album remains strong as ever. We here at Defenders of the Faith can’t wait to hear the latest from thee Defenders of the Faith, and look forward to sharing our thoughts with you first thing next week. Until then, stay heavy and keep the faith!
My favorite once upon a time, absolutely love it 😎🦾🔥🤘