As has been mentioned, although Sabbath may have invented heavy metal, it was Judas Priest who canonized it. Following the ground breaking "Sad Wings of Destiny", Priest released a string of albums in the seventies that set standards for metal music that have yet to be surpassed. "Hell Bent for Leather" is probably the least of these in terms of consistency--there are "Burnin' Up", which is more gay than Rob Halford could ever dream of being, and the Queen-meets-Manowar-ish "Take On the World" to contend with--and yet it's the one I play most often, simply because the good songs are so good. "Delivering the Goods" is the archetypal Priest concert anthem (see also "Heading Out to the Highway") and is surprisingly bracing, even after all these years. "Hell Bent for Leather" and "The Green Manalishi", with Tipton and Downing going for blood, are certified Priest classics, as is the often-overlooked "Evening Star", a four-minute clinic in momentum with an especially good Halford performance. There is filler to be found here and listeners old enough to buy beer might cringe at some of the lyrics ("I waaaant my rock forever!"), but "Hell Bent for Leather" succeeds, for the most part, as a slab of proto-metal genius and marks the last time Priest would explore this type of sound before moving on to the hooks of "British Steel" and the barbs of "Screaming for Vengeance". An essential piece of metal history.

© 1999 craig