Dispatches from Chaos: Judas Priest’s Pain Killer

Put the pedal to the metal!

Sean M. Hebner has a lot to say about Judas Priest.

Judas Priest – Painkiller

A True Metal Review By:

Sean M. Hebner

25 whosawhatsits out of 5

First, I’d like to say “Thanks” to fellow Culture Fusion contributor Jonathan Brodsky for opening my eyes to the roots the DEEP roots of Industrial music. Second, WHOLY FUCKING SHIT I LOVE THIS ALBUM! If Eric did his job you should be staring into the eyes of the PAIN KILLER itself. A dude in metal armor riding a dragon motorcycle with buzz saw blades and pumping his metal god fist into the air! We can’t forget that he dawns metal angel wings and is flying over the ruined wastes of what’s left of his world. FUCK and YES!

I’m going on record and saying that this is the best GODDAMNED metal album EVER.

I FUCKING hear you over there and your overzealousness, no I’m right. WHY am I right? Album cover mentioned is a major point its do Goddamned metal its’ not even funny! The songs on this album: “All guns blazing”, “Painkiller”, “One shot at glory”, the whole damn album really. The lyrics: about blood and steel and sex. EVERY-FUCING-THING about this album is the perfect storm of metal!

Unlike most metal heads I love metal for what it is; an absurdist movement that spits in the face of traditional masculine worldviews by cranking them to goddamned 15! Ok that sentence was pulled SQUARE shaped from my ass, but seriously folks we gotta admit, metal can be really fucking goofy. Priest is the root reason for this. They had a not-so-in-the-closet gay man go into his father’s fetish shop and don BDSM stuff, which then became the metal norm. Gay BDSM. I can hear your inner metal purest SCREAM for VENGANCE and threaten to RAM IT DOWN my throat only to confirm my observations about this our mutual hearts blood. Its borderline psychotic to believe that this genera, albeit the BEST OF ALL THE GENERAS FUCKING EVER, isn’t a little on the goofy side.

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-7S8vGzPDL9s/TdfO3Ze2P5I/AAAAAAAAGVs/B5GOYozqbV0/s1600/goofy.jpg

(garsh! I’m between the hammer and the anvil!)

This album is both a purist’s wet dream and its worst nightmare. I for one have moved past my purist nature and on to greater things!

I wish I had the words to describe just how awesome this album is. Also that it took until 1990 for this album to even come out. I mean, the existence of Blind Guardian alone in 1985 should have made something like that come out first. I was also shocked to find that the album that I would have point to as the beginning of Power Metal as I know it wasn’t written till AFTER the fact by almost 5 years. But all that is peripheral.

This album starts with sounds like a motor powered by brimstone! That drum fill is soo wicked! Then just pounding that’s louder than an atom bomb! Metal perfection; all the while going “Faster than a laser bullet!” I’m legitimately mad that Painkiller didn’t come out till 1990!! TWISTING THE STRANGLED RIB/ WON’T GIVE NO MERCY! ALL! GUNS! ALL GUNS BLAZING! After that you get hit with LEATHER FUCKING REBEL! I listen to this album on my way to work by the time I get back my wife was knocked up and had a kid with how fucking MANLY I fucking feel listening to this album!!!!!!!!!! Just goes to show, can’t judge a gay by their sexual orientation … Because the manliest man alive happens to be SO manly, he likes dudes. WHAT’S MANLYIER than that?!!!?!!? LEGEND IN MY LIFE TIME/ STORIES WILL RECALL!! LEATHER REBEL!!!!! GODDAMIT! I CAN’T TYPE ANY FUCKING LOUDER! Then a Metal Meltdown!!!!!! I’ve listened to this album for 7 days straight looking for things to talk about that wasn’t just me gushing my nerdy load all over this album and from every angle I approach Painkiller, it holds up. The music is perfect; Halfords voice is at its peak. The solos are musically satisfying within reason (showoffy, but not overly wanky). The album front to back has NO weak tracks, not a one, nay-nay-nay.

http://triadstrategies.typepad.com/.a/6a0120a6abf659970b0147e11de315970b-800wi

(Send in the satanic nuns!)

Ok, ya got me there is ONE thing I don’t worship about this album. That would be the intro to “Between the hammer and the anvil.” It’s just meh. The song proper though is fucking AWESOME! If I were to pick a favorite song from this album I’d have to pick FUCK YOU! Not a one song is better than the other and they are soooo oooooh fucking GREAT that picking one would be like: dying, going to heaven, seeing GOD, then raping his Goddamned face! NOT. Fucking. COOL!

Face it, this is something that you can submit to the academy of sciences as proof of GODs existence and you’d get a buch of people doing the math and finally shrugging and put one tally in the “for” column. Freaking Judas Priest was chasing the trend for a couple years there; they reset the table with this one that’s for sure. They said there’s “One shot at glory” on the same album that says “legend in my life time” and there is no conflict. They prove once more that they are on top of the food chain still with this one. And atop the food chain they will remain am I right?!?!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SFCZDNwomRA

(ladies and gentlemen, MANLYNESS!!)

Tune in next week at I address the top five strangest Judas Priest Music Videos! That will be an easy list so to speak but at the same time I’m too fucking good at my job NOT to fuck it up! … wait.

Goodnight and Listen to Judas Priest!