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Album Details

• Artist: Judas Priest
• Album: Stained Class
• Label: Columbia Records
• Year of Release: 1978
• ME Rating:
• Reviewed by: gwhill on 2012-10-29

It feels more like the logical transition between Sad Wings of Destiny and the later period of Priest’s sound. There are some exceptionally strong pieces of music. Surprisingly, though, other than “Exciter” and “Beyond the Realms of Death,” nothing from the disc has ever really been pulled into the live set of the group. Of course, that first song itself is quite frantic and really has a great Judas Priest vibe to it. It’s worthy of being in the Judas Priest live set, although it was used in that context more in the earlier days of the band than more recently. Still, the power ballad like “Beyond the Realms of Death” (which musically resembles “Suite Madame Blue” by Styx a bit) has remained a concert staple for Judas Priest throughout their career.    

In some ways the song “Savage” seems like it was perhaps the inspiration for, or at least shares a lyrical inspiration with, Iron Maiden’s “Run to the Hills.” Lyrically the song “Invader” with its space alien story, seems to be the precursor for later Priest science fiction numbers, but it seems a little trite in terms of that lyrical concept. “Better By You, Better Than Me” was a cover of the Spooky Tooth song (penned by Gary Wright), and had that sort of boogie sound heard on Sin After Sin and Rocka Rolla.

Overall, Stained Class represented a change for Judas Priest, but seemed more like the next logical step from Sad Wings of Destiny than Sin After Sin had. It seems obvious in listening to Stained Class that the group were working to develop their sound and were destined for great things. Stained Class is an album that still holds up well.

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