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Rating:  -
This is regarded as a classic metal album, but is extremely dated and has aged horribley. BRITISH STEEL is really not all that great, especialy when you compare it to what else came out in 1980: Black Sabbath released the exellent HEAVEN AND HELL, AC/DC come out with the greatest rock album of all time, BACK IN BLACK, Ozzy Osbourne unleashed his solo debut BLIZZARD OF OZ, Motorhead came out with their best ACE OF SPADES, The Scorpions put out ANIMAL MAGNETISM and there was the first IRON MAIDEN lp as well. Each and every one of the above efforts mentioned utterly destroys BRITISH STEEL with out breaking a sweat. It is really one of the most overrated albums ever put out, the songs are just half @$$ed metal at best. The two best songs were Rapid Fire and Grinder, forget about everything else because it is just the beging of heavy metal becoming foolish. When people talk about Def Leppard or Motley Crue being one dimentinonal clished pop metal, Judas Preist should be right up there with them, BREAKING THE LAW and LIVING AFTER MIDNIGHT basically gave birth to the insipid pop metal scene that polutted the 80's.
OVERRATED!
Rating:  -
While not quite as strong from beginning to end as Hell Bent for Leather, British Steel still produced two of the most recognized and well-loved metal songs of all-time.
"Living after Midnight" while perhaps a bit on the "pop" side remains one of the great metal anthem songs. With it's distinctive opening drum beat by new drummer Dave Holland, this is a tune that remains on the play lists of many rock stations 25 years after its debut. A certified classic.
"Breaking the Law" as distintive as "Living after Midnight" is with its opening drums, so is this song with the opening guitar riff making this another certified classic. The song has gone on to be featured in several films and while it had one of the cheesiest videos ever, the song remains a fave.
"Rapid Fire" A speed metal song before anyone ever heard of the term. A pounding "rapid fire" pace of a song that always made for a great opening song and a head banging legend.
"Grinder' a great opening guitar riff of a song that in many ways reflects the essence of heavy metal. Fantastic solo!
Those are my four favorites from the album. "Steeler' and "The Rage are also good. I was never much of a fan of "Metal Gods" though. A powerful album that cemented Priest as the premiere and most revered Heavy Metal band of the early 1980's.
Rating: -
First I want to briefly discuss Killing Machine (known as Hell Bent for Leather in the US) and then move on to British Steel, so please bear with me...I heard both records for the first time late in 1984 or early in 1985 when I was 16 years old and new to the metal scene...
Killing Machine was a great record, it was released in 1978 and was Priest's first experiment with their new stripped-down sound, shorter songs and more direct lyrics. As such, while individual songs on Killing Machine were great (actually they nearly all were), the album had a very experimental feel to it, and you felt that still better was to come.
British Steel was released two years after Killing Machine, and you felt the band had matured a lot and grown heaps in self-confidence. The live album Unleashed In The East kept the fans' interest in the band alive throughout 1979. Another change took place before British Steel was recorded, with Les Binks being replaced by Dave Holland on drums (sadly incarcerated now for sex offences - forvever remembered in my mind for the drum intro on Riding On The Wind). The heart and soul of the band, Rob Halford on vocals, KK Downing and Glenn Tipton on guitars and Ian Hill on bass, remained in place for British Steel.
What can I say about British Steel itself? I loved it, I just loved the overall sound that they managed to produce. It was similar to Killing Machine in basic style, sound and direction, but there was more of the feeling of the songs being linked together as a complete package. The sound was still raw, but it was slightly more polished, and by the time Vengeance came out in 1982 they would head further in the direction of a polished sound. Halford's voice is at its best on British Steel, authoritative, powerful, passionate, able to hit the very low and high notes, and suitably aggressive in the right places.
The album starts with Rapid Fire, a speed metal track ahead of its time, that just keeps on keeping on as the words and riffs just continue unabated, with not much variation in the tone, just a grinding repetitive rythmn, and no sign of an identifiable chorus either. It's a similar opener to Delivering The Goods on Killing Machine, but in this case I feel the Killing Machine opener is better, but not by much.
Metal Gods is anthemnic in nature with the powerful chorus of Metal Gods, backed up by the dragging of chains sound effect that occurs at the same time as the main riff, and its timing and volume mixed in with the regular guitar sound is just perfect, and chilling in its effectiveness. The chains sound is not too loud or too buried. The subject matter - which I didn't realise back in the day (no lyrics came with the album) - is about security cameras, as on the song Electric Eye.
Grinder is a standard, fairly slow, menacing and brooding heavy number. The main riff of this song and Creeping Death by Metallica seem somehow similar to me. However, to my knowledge no-one else has ever said this, now or then, so maybe I'm missing something.
United is a sing-along fun anthemn (Take on the World Part II), focusing on the togetherness and unity of metal fans back then, which is sadly (in my opinion) much lesser nowdays cos the genre has split up into thrash, death, black, melodic death, metalcore. etc. and many people are interested only in one or two of the sub-genres. So the early to mid 1980s were really a unique time in metal history, and United sums up the feeling of the times well. Back in the 1980s, metal was metal, and those that loved Motley Crue also loved Slayer and Metallica. Yes, the song was cheesy but think what Queen was doing back then.
On the original LP version, Living After Midnight kicked off side two with a bang. A great song, more commercially oriented, but its still definitely Priest in character and heart (in my opinion). It has so much energy and simplicity, and just simply rocks.
I was in a cafe in the entertainment district of Perth, Australia called Northbridge with a Canadian friend (Mark R.) one Sunday night two years ago. We both found out, almost stumbling upon it by accident, that we were two 80s metalheads in hiding. 20 seconds later we were both singing the words of Living After Midnight!
So I think this is the best Priest record. The title says it all. It summarised what Priest were all about - reliable, trustworthy, tough, unashamedly patriotic, resolute, cheerful. I'm glad they didn't call the album Living After Midnight and make that song the title track. British Steel sums up best what the band were all about circa 1980.
FOOTNOTE (added 9 June 2006): I have noticed on certain internet chat forums, it has become cool among some people to bash this record, and heap praise on all the Priest records that came before it and after it. This is just re-writing history in my opinion. Back in the day the vast majority of fans loved British Steel, and regarded it as a positive move forward for the band. It should also be noted that whilst Breaking The Law and Living After Midnight are not bad songs at all, they are not representative of the album taken as a whole.
Rating: -
I have worn out more records, tapes and CDs of this album than all others combined.
Timeless. If you are looking for a hard (but not thrashing) CD buy this. (Just delete the extra on the 'remastered version' red white and blue--it does not belong. Why do record companies always want to mess with perfection?)
I would recommend buying the non-remastered version.
Zepplin IV
Van Halen I
Piece of Mind - Iron Maiden
Black Sabbath Paranoid
Judas Priest British Steel
AC/DC Back in Black
If these six CDs are not in your collection, you are wasting precious moments on Earth. Buy them now.
Rating: -
"British Steel" was a major hit for the band and will forever be one of the most important works in the long discography of the metal titans. The disc contains classic heavy hitters like "Grinder","Living After Midnight" or "Breaking The Law". Those songs alone are reason for puchasing the record, which is considered by many as the finest work of the Birmingham Priests.
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