The Best of Judas Priest: Living After Midnight

iTunes Review

Though Judas Priest was a band for most of the '70s, and they carried on in various incarnations in the '90s and beyond, the '80s saw their greatest triumphs. The Best of Judas Priest charts the period between 1978 and 1990, when Judas Priest commanded hordes of heavy metal hopefuls who flocked to their concerts like religious converts pilgrimaging to The Holy Land (see the documentary Heavy Metal Parking lot for the definitive portrait of Priest’s minions). Sequenced chronologically, this collection emphasizes two major aspects of Priest’s career: their consistency and their integrity. The '80s began with AC/DC and ended with Winger, but through the transition from hard rock to hair metal Priest never faltered from their immortal formula: propulsive biker gang rhythms, the dueling guitar attack of K.K. Downing and Glen Tipton, and of course, the epic vocalizing of Rob Halford. Though die-hard Priest fans might tell you that the band sold out in the latter half of the Eighties, songs like “Metal Meltdown” and “Ram It Down” are impressively unrelenting. If you need single-compendium proof of why Priest was, is, and always will be metal’s Godhead, look no further than The Best of Judas Priest.