I have been a fan of Judas Priest for quite some time now, but
\nas much as I think they created a lot of great music, I’m more than
\ncapable of admitting that when they were bad, there could scarcely
\nhave been anyone worse. With the album
\nRam It Down<\/i>, they unfortunately managed to serve up a
\nplatter that is utterly putrid from start to finish.<\/p>\n
Their previous album,
\nTurbo<\/i>, generated loads of controversy among fans of the band
\nbecause of its more commercial sound and the first-time use of
\nsynthesizers. I think this caused the band to panic and they went
\ninto damage control mode, and this paranoia apparently resulted in
\nRam It Down<\/i>, an album so generic that it’s insulting. You
\ncouldn’t get a better parody if you tried.<\/p>\n
Every aspect of the music completely sucks. Period. All the
\nhigh-pitched screaming and tastelessly wanking interchangeable
\nsolos that overpopulate the disc are nothing but a big special
\neffects show designed to distract you, the listener, from one very
\nsad fact: that the band hasn’t bothered to write any songs. It’s
\ntrue, these are not songs but rather a stew of uninspired snippets
\ntossed together like a salad in the hope that something might
\nmiraculously gel and actually produce moments of music worth
\nhearing, but it fails on all counts. The entire affair is so lazy
\nthat I feel embarrassed for the band that this album is widely
\navailable for the public to hear. I dare say that just a few years
\nprior, not one of these “songs” would have had any chance of making
\nthe cut on one of their quality albums. Dreadful stuff of the kind
\nonly a band that has completely lost its way could produce and see
\nfit for release.<\/p>\n
The group’s two lead guitarists, Glen Tipton and K.K. Downing,
\nare incapable of serving up a single measly memorable riff
\nthroughout the seemingly eternal 50 minute running time, and both
\nare guilty of falling prey to the all-flash-and-no-substance
\nsoloing that had become standard issue in rock and metal in the
\n’80s. Rarely has their playing ever sounded so tired. Add to that
\nthe fact that the tone of the guitars is hideous as well — they
\nsound completely tinny and almost digitized.<\/p>\n
Rob Halford also deserves a lot of the blame for failing to
\ncreate any vocal melodies with great hooks as he had so often done
\nin the past. He relegates himself to dramatically shouting a lot of
\nthe time, followed by the same high pitched wailing over and over
\nin every song instead of actually singing, and not surprisingly, it
\nnever goes anywhere. Or in the case of a track like “Heavy Metal,”
\nit goes to places no person ever wants to go — just try to listen
\nto the vocals on that gem and not cringe. Don’t even get me started
\non his sub-elementary school level dreck passing for lyrics.<\/p>\n
I don’t think the rhythm section even entered the studio at all.
\nI hear a bunch of ugly synthesized bass and the kind of monotonous
\nmechanical drumming only a cheap drum machine makes, unless they
\nhad the shittiest drummer I’ve ever heard. Even the Sisters Of
\nMercy’s Doktor Avalanche had more personality.<\/p>\n
The production job completes the disaster. Judas Priest tried to
\nregain some of their meaner, darker sound from earlier years with
\nthis release, but aside from the fact that they had absolutely no
\nsongwriting ideas, the actual recording itself has no power.
\nEverything sounds echoey and trebly with hardly any discernible low
\nend. Sometimes there were moments where I had the feeling the
\nrecording was slightly sped up even, further blunting what might
\notherwise have at least sounded a little meatier, if nothing
\nelse.<\/p>\n
It’s also essential to mention that even if the album were
\nslightly less terrible than it is overall, there’s simply no
\nescaping how dramatically, colossally, and hugely wretched their
\ncover is of Chuck Berry’s classic anthem “Johnny B. Goode.”
\nExperience in amazement how your ears implode upon enduring the
\nworst cover in recorded music history.<\/p>\n
And there you have it — I would nominate
\nRam It Down<\/i> as quite possibly being the worst album of the
\nlengthy career of Judas Priest, and quite possibly one of the worst
\nmetal albums I’ve ever heard. Spinal Tap in all its glory. Trust
\nme, if you make the mistake of listening to this disc as an
\nintroduction to this band, you will never ever want to explore any
\nfurther, and that would be a shame. It’s baffling to me how this
\nsame band managed to completely turn around practically overnight
\nand record the highly-praised, classic album
\nPainkiller<\/i> as their next release only two years later.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":29,"featured_media":26985,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[],"artist":[5855],"rating":[5620],"class_list":["post-38300","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-judas-priest","rating-rating-f"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/38300","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/29"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=38300"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/38300\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26985"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38300"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=38300"},{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=38300"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=38300"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}