Sad Wings Of Destiny - what's so especial?

[EuroJR]

All the JP fans seem to love this album.
Excluding the marvellous cover I really do not understand the love for this album.

Lousy produced weak song after another one.

And who cares about the fucking Victim Of Changes?
Weak sabbath style song. A burden in their song list. Give it a rest for fucks sake.

[fret123]

All time classic. Very ahead of its time, the first modern style metal album. The Ripper, Tyrant, Genocide, Victim of Changes, actually the whole album is great. If you like the British Steel on version of Judas Priest then this album might sound a little strange to you but I’m the other way. I like everything up to Stained Class (my favourite Priest album) a lot more than their 80s stuff.

[Wiseacre]

The "production" is actually VERY GOOD for the time especially. The drums are clean and full and the kick especially is fat and has great attack. The guitars are a little under-driven but that's just the time period. The vocals are EXCELLENT. Definitely Rob's best overall album. The songs are TO NOTCH through and through. Priest were never better than this aside from maybe the guitar solos which only improved with time (but these are fantastic as well). This album was my introduction to the band (though long after 1976).

A couple songs are a little plodding like so many studio versions, but that's what Unleashed in the East is for (although a couple of the Sad Wings tunes are hysterically too fast). I'll still take the superior studio versions over the live versions though. It has everything. Power, melody, heavy songs, ballads, etc. This album is simply 10 out of 10, imo. A rare PERFECT album for me.

Combine this album with Stained Class and it would be the most epic early metal album of all time.

[aznsquirt]

Amazingly album.

Oddball side note: There's a Halford song called "Sad Wings" that was a bonus track on the Resurrection album.

This version crushes: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DOBps7KsVjw

[HueyRamone]

Are you for realz, bro? This album invented heavy metal! (Sabbath invented stoner/doom)

Show a little respect to the kings, Judy P!

[Charles Bukaki]

All time classic. Very ahead of its time, the first modern style metal album. The Ripper, Tyrant, Genocide, Victim of Changes, actually the whole album is great. If you like the British Steel on version of Judas Priest then this album might sound a little strange to you but I’m the other way. I like everything up to Stained Class (my favourite Priest album) a lot more than their 80s stuff.

100%

[Dyslexicheart]

You lost me at “especial”.

[the_man_incognito]

The only thing that 'bugs' me is that the drummer must have only had 1 cymbal...drives me crazy to hear the same cymbal over and over when I tune in on it...

[jens]

You lost me at “especial”.

I bet your Spanish isn't half as good as his English.

[Love_Industry]

You lost me at “especial”.

I bet your Spanish isn't half as good as his English.

I want his Spanish SWOD vinyl with gatefold and extra notes / pics.

[rubes]

Look, You Are Gay, You’re also Lame!

[rubes]

Look, You Are Gay, You’re also Lame!

[keyofgee]

The only thing that 'bugs' me is that the drummer must have only had 1 cymbal...drives me crazy to hear the same cymbal over and over when I tune in on it...

thanks, i will now be listening for that...every time I listen to it...

[keyofgee]

The only thing that 'bugs' me is that the drummer must have only had 1 cymbal...drives me crazy to hear the same cymbal over and over when I tune in on it...

thanks, i will now be listening for that...every time I listen to it...updated. it sounds like it was added after the drums were recorded too. "Does anyone have a tambourine? No! it's not metal enough, use this ride cymbal instead"!

[Tenacious_Dio]

My first exposure to half of those songs was on "Unleashed In the East', so the studio versions pale in comparison.

So it was a bit like discovering the first KISS album, after you've already heard Alive!.

[HueyRamone]

My first exposure to half of those songs was on "Unleashed In the East', so the studio versions pale in comparison.

So it was a bit like discovering the first KISS album, after you've already heard Alive!.

Yeah, the song Sinner on Sin After Sin is particularly egregious. Cant listen to the original. Tyrant too, with the "Tyyyyyy-rant" in the chorus.

[Love_Industry]

My first exposure to half of those songs was on "Unleashed In the East', so the studio versions pale in comparison.

So it was a bit like discovering the first KISS album, after you've already heard Alive!.

Yeah, the song Sinner on Sin After Sin is particularly egregious. Cant listen to the original. Tyrant too, with the "Tyyyyyy-rant" in the chorus.

The sound on the original UK vinyls of SWOD and SAS is not too bad, but when I got into Priest the market was flooded with cheap early 80s pressings from Holland, France, Belgium... those sounded atrocious. The Milan and Telaeg pressings are worse than Sabbath's NEMS vinyls.

[inextrem]

Great album. One of their best.

[Total Ass]

Great album. One of their best.

Jesus Christ, what is your GIF from?

[pieceofme]

According to the recent thread, most don't seem to have it in their top 5 judas priest albums.

It is not in my top 5 but its classic Priest so it is still really good. Reason people rate it is because it is a really good album. And some people prefer the more raw 70s sounding priest to the more mechanical over the top priest of the 80s.

[Sleek]

Eighties Priest IS Priest to me.

Seventies Priest is...seventies shit.

Like with Scorpions.

[pieceofme]

Eighties Priest IS Priest to me.

Seventies Priest is...seventies shit.

Like with Scorpions.

80s priest is definitely best. As is 80s Scorpions.

The difference between the bands is that 70s Priest still has a lot of great stuff.

70s Scorpions not so much. With the notable exception of lovedrive which sounds more 80s anyways. Is it on the cusp due to its release date after all.

[Psychobolia.com]

This thread reminds me, I need to listen to Rad Wings of Destiny someday (Ugly Kid Joe).

[Sleek]

Eighties Priest IS Priest to me.

Seventies Priest is...seventies shit.

Like with Scorpions.

80s priest is definitely best. As is 80s Scorpions.

The difference between the bands is that 80s Priest still has a lot of great stuff.

70s Scorpions not so much. With the notable exception of lovedrive which sounds more 80s anyways. Is it on the cusp due to its release date after all.

I consider all scorpions after Uli left to be eighties, no matter when it came out

[Lobo]

This was only their second album. I feel like the band was still trying to work on their sound, figuring out who they were.

Outside of Black Sabbath metal wasn't really around.

The early Scorpions comparison is accurate to me.

I've always preferred Maiden to Priest but Maiden's first album came out in 1980. Priest had released FIVE albums before Maiden had put out their first.

To me, early Priest sounded like a band that hadn't really gelled yet. They were still figuring it out. I really feel like it was the first incarnation of what we call a new version of heavy metal, their early albums. Something that took what Sabbath had done and advanced it to something newer and sometimes faster.

Kind of like Metallica and the other thrash bands took what Priest and Maiden did and took that farther and faster.

Early Priest is the template for a flood of 80's metal bands.

[inextrem]

Great album. One of their best.

Jesus Christ, what is your GIF from?

That was a rage on my local news many years ago.

My then room mate used to work night shift in a shitty nursing home.

There was this old grandma (way above 100 years) who kept tellin her someone was coming every night to throw her outta his bed. Thing is many times my room mate, found the old lady laying on the floor of the room in the early hours of the day.

Long story short... another worker put a camera on the table and film this scary shit. It was probably a glitch or something, but it made local TV.

My room mate quit the next day (she's the one in the vid)

[inextrem]

Great album. One of their best.

Jesus Christ, what is your GIF from?

That was a rage on my local news many years ago.

My then room mate used to work night shift in a shitty nursing home.

There was this old grandma (way above 100 years) who kept tellin her someone was coming every night to throw her outta his bed. Thing is many times my room mate, found the old lady laying on the floor of the room in the early hours of the day.

Long story short... another worker put a camera on the table and filmed this scary shit. It was probably a glitch or something, but it made local TV.

My room mate quit the next day (she's the one in the vid)

[Love_Industry]

To me, early Priest sounded like a band that hadn't really gelled yet. They were still figuring it out. I really feel like it was the first incarnation of what we call a new version of heavy metal, their early albums. Something that took what Sabbath had done and advanced it to something newer and sometimes faster.

The first three albums, indeed. But on Stained Class they nailed it... and then moved away from it. Probably too progressive for the masses.

I still prefer "Abattoir, abattoir, mon Dieu quelle horreur. For a time is was like second hell." to "Rides the metal monster, Breathing smoke and fire. Closing in with vengeance soaring high"....

[HueyRamone]

To me, early Priest sounded like a band that hadn't really gelled yet. They were still figuring it out. I really feel like it was the first incarnation of what we call a new version of heavy metal, their early albums. Something that took what Sabbath had done and advanced it to something newer and sometimes faster.

The first three albums, indeed. But on Stained Class they nailed it... and then moved away from it. Probably too progressive for the masses.

I still prefer "Abattoir, abattoir, mon Dieu quelle horreur. For a time is was like second hell." to "Rides the metal monster, Breathing smoke and fire. Closing in with vengeance soaring high"....

I must be in some bizarro world where an album that has this:

"Victim of Changes"
"The Ripper"
"Dreamer Deceiver"
"Deceiver"
"Tyrant"
"Genocide"

is by a band that "hadnt gelled" and " would finally get it together" later. That list blows away many band's best.

I do actually think Sin After Sin is a bit of a mess, that one I could understand being called ungelled.

[fret123]

To me, early Priest sounded like a band that hadn't really gelled yet. They were still figuring it out. I really feel like it was the first incarnation of what we call a new version of heavy metal, their early albums. Something that took what Sabbath had done and advanced it to something newer and sometimes faster.

The first three albums, indeed. But on Stained Class they nailed it... and then moved away from it. Probably too progressive for the masses.

I still prefer "Abattoir, abattoir, mon Dieu quelle horreur. For a time is was like second hell." to "Rides the metal monster, Breathing smoke and fire. Closing in with vengeance soaring high"....

I must be in some bizarro world where an album that has this:

"Victim of Changes"
"The Ripper"
"Dreamer Deceiver"
"Deceiver"
"Tyrant"
"Genocide"

is by a band that "hadnt gelled" and " would finally get it together" later. That list blows away many band's best.

I do actually think Sin After Sin is a bit of a mess, that one I could understand being called ungelled.

Probably because most people consider Judas Priest to be British Steel onwards. I’m the exact opposite. I could take it or leave it on Priest’s 80s material. I think their 70s material is far superior. But a lot of fans who like Breaking The Law or You Got Another Thing Coming find the 70s stuff strange or even unlistenable. It’s the same with Scorpions for me. The 70s stuff is godlike, the 80s stuff is just decent pop metal like Priest’s 80s stuff. I will say though that getting good drummers like Simon Phillips and Les Binks from Sin After Sin on really helped Priest coalesce their sound better. The drumming on Rocka Rolla and Sad Wings is nothing special.