A more hoarse Halford bellows and wails through that crotch-grabbing soundtrack 'Freewheel Burning'. I can see it now, leather-clad studs on big, bad bikes and frizzy haired harlots giving admiring glances over their lacy shoulders. Priest at their best are a formidable act, but at their cheesiest they often fall short. Thankfully 'Defenders...' shatters any fears as Tipton and Downing begin on volume ten. Sharp, clinical hell hath no fury metal meltdown. Back in the day I wasn't actually much of a fan and have found the band's recorded output slightly irritating, often lukewarm and patchy, but when on form they smoke. 'Defenders...' has all the perfect ingredients to be a soul destroying metal menagerie of raging beasts.
Full of fist-pumping and holocaustic headbangers, ya know what ya gonna get with 'Jawbreaker', Holland's rattling cymbals crashing through the night, the guitars leaving fire in their wake. Strangely as well, it seems that Priest's lyrics, which seem so terribly cliched, do in fact work so much better than thousands of other bands. I guess they were one of the first to get the metal pandemonium down to a 't', hell fires, raging storms, dead of night, you know the score, ripping flesh for the sake of burning metal. The message is simple with Priest because at times they had the power and intensity to deliver it. Admittedly, when they failed, they were a corny bunch, but when they succeeded they stoked the fires for the early days of metal like no other. It's no surprise so many bands were influenced by such chest-pounding, domineering and leathery rock 'n' roll.
Priest are vital to metal and when they staked their place, they made themselves fossils in the framework of the genre for all to see, hear and be inspired by.
8/10
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