Well, that's it. After four extremely promising albums, Judas Priest finally moves up a gear with this opus. The album in question is called "Killing Machine" and it will be renamed at its release in the USA not to shock, hence the second name that is often added to it: "Hell Bent For Leather".
The first thing that stands out is the sound that finally does justice to the band. The riffs are put forward, powerful, worked, inventive. The Tipton/Downing pair is never satisfied with a single idea. They have been completing it and making it evolve within the short tracks, without giving an impression of rush. In the genre, the song "Hell Bent For Leather" is a reference: verse - chorus - verse - chorus - sung bridge - two supersonic and varied solos - again the bridge - chorus in fade out, accompanied in its downfall by a Rob Halford in a brief state of grace, all in two minutes and thirty-eight.
The pieces follow one another without dead time and the ideas pass by. The watchword? Go to the essential. Each time the band reviews the main styles of hard/heavy music that are about to emerge. "Evening Star" for the hard FM, "Take On The World" for the anthemic metal, "Burning Up" for the glam or "Running Wild" very close to Iron Maiden... Each track is necessary and interesting. It is even difficult not to find beautiful the syrupy ballad "Before The Dawn".
The icing on this very attractive cake is that all the members are at their best here. Tipton and Downing get along like no other, Halford sings remarkably well, intelligently alternating high and epic vocals with low and aggressive ones. Finally, Les Bink does his job very well, managing on his own to enliven the end of the title "Killing Machine" with sobriety.
We are in 1979 and the metallic landscape is moving. In this month of March, Motörhead released "Overkill" at about the same time that "Hell Bent For Leather" was released in the USA (four months after its English release). At the end of February, Scorpions had already toughened the tone with "Lovedrive". A few months later, a certain Steve Harris returned to the studio, determined to make speak about him. A wave is rising on England, and thanks to this perfect album, Judas Priest is a legitimate precursor of the movement to come.