Judas Priest followed up their most successful album to date, 'British Steel', with their 1981 release 'Point of Entry'. Priest had finally broken in the States and another commercial album was needed to crack the American market wide open. Not a success, at least not initially. 'PoE' just tries way to hard to be appealing from a song standpoint. Long gone was the innovation that had made Priest such a scary metal monster from 1976 to 1979 (or '80). The band wanted to get paid finally and who could blame them. Thus begins a kind of slow spiral downward into cliches and dumbed down lyrics. 'Entry' does have classics, "Heading Out to the Highway" leading the way; classic riff, great lyric and chorus. Simple but powerful. Other standouts include "Desert Plains" (Amazing, the visual imagery and the music!!), "Solar Angels" (Classic Glenn and KK here, riffs are immense!!) and maybe "Hot Rockin'" (still a song that the band could do in their sleep during their glory run). "On the Run" is pretty good as a closer but not a classic. The rest of the tunes range from average to annoying filler (and embarassing (hello "Turning Circles")). Some critics tend to treat 'Steel' as the sign of bad things to come but I think 'Point of Entry' is where this begins. Experimental but not entirely successful, this record still blows away what the band would produce later in the decade. This record is still a worthwhile purchase because of the great guitar sound and of course, Halford is Halford, but don't make 'Point of Entry' your first Priest album.
Judas Priest followed up their most successful album to date, 'British Steel', with their 1981 release 'Point of Entry'. Priest had finally broken in the States and another commercial album was needed to crack the American market wide open. Not a success, at least not initially. 'PoE' just tries way to hard to be appealing from a song standpoint. Long gone was the innovation that had made Priest such a scary metal monster from 1976 to 1979 (or '80). The band wanted to get paid finally and who could blame them. Thus begins a kind of slow spiral downward into cliches and dumbed down lyrics. 'Entry' does have classics, "Heading Out to the Highway" leading the way; classic riff, great lyric and chorus. Simple but powerful. Other standouts include "Desert Plains" (Amazing, the visual imagery and the music!! ), "Solar Angels" (Classic Glenn and KK here, riffs are immense!! ) and maybe "Hot Rockin'" (still a song that the band could do in their sleep during their glory run). "On the Run" is pretty good as a closer but not a classic. The rest of the tunes range from average to annoying filler (and embarassing (hello "Turning Circles")). Some critics tend to treat 'Steel' as the sign of bad things to come but I think 'Point of Entry' is where this begins. Experimental but not entirely successful, this record still blows away what the band would produce later in the decade. This record is still a worthwhile purchase because of the great guitar sound and of course, Halford is Halford, but don't make 'Point of Entry' your first Priest album.