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Album Details

• Artist: Judas Priest
• Album: Ram It Down
• Label: Columbia
• Year of Release: 1988
• ME Rating:
• Reviewed by: gwhill on 2012-11-05

As far as I’m concerned, Ram It Down seems almost like an apology for the Judas Priest album that preceded it, Turbo. That disc was barely metal and was really only saved by Rob Halford’s vocals. This one wastes no time showing that the metal is back. While this isn’t one of Judas Priest’s best albums, there are some great songs and it showed that they could still rock.

The opening title track just plain fires out of the gate, screaming like crazy. In fact, it is so frantic and heavy that it almost feels like thrash. “Blood Red Skies” is one the trademark Judas Priest power ballads. It’s a classic and one of the highlights of the disc. “Monsters of Rock” has a slow plodding approach, much like “Metal Gods” from British Steel.

Some love it, some hate it, but Judas Priest hadn’t done a cover in quite a while, but with Ram It Down they turned their attention to Chuck Berry, rendering a Priest rendition of “Johnny B. Goode.” If there’s one consistent complaint to be made about Ram It Down, it concerns the song titles. The disc arguably has the most generic and sometimes silly song titles of any Priest set. The list includes, “Heavy Metal,” “Love Zone,” “Hard as Iron,” “Come and Get It” and “I’m a Rocker.” Despite the trite titles, though, some of the songs are quite good.

While Ram It Down was certainly more pure metal than its predecessor, and the opening cut was one of the most aggressive the band had ever done, some songs weren’t as obviously metal.  For instance, “Come and Get It” at times feels like Sammy Hagar does Judas Priest. Overall, while the disc has its flaws, it’s a solid entry in the Judas Priest catalog and came with a real sense of redemption.

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