Judas Priest remasters its metal-god moves

Judas Priest may be most (in)famously known for the multimillion-dollar 1990 lawsuit leveled against the band, which claimed that subliminal messages in their 1978 Gary Wright/Spooky Tooth cover, "Better by You Better Than Me," caused two teenagers to commit suicide. Or perhaps all you know of Judas Priest is 1980's "Breaking the Law," one of Beavis and Butt-Head's favorite headbanger anthems. Or perhaps your Priest awareness ended in early '90s, when, after more than 20 years, frontman Rob Halford professed his homosexuality and left the group.

But it was actually 10 years earlier that Birmingham, England's metal gods peaked with British Steel, Point of Entry, Screaming for Vengeance and Defenders of the Faith, remastered recently by Columbia/Legacy as part of a mammoth reissue campaign.

Admittedly, it's hard to not focus on the lyrics when it comes to Judas Priest. Especially on a song like "Grinder," with lines that include "Never straight and narrow/I won't keep in time/Tend to bend the arrow out of line/Grinder, looking for meat/Grinder, wants you to eat." Or a song like "Pain and Pleasure" from 1982's Screaming for Vengeance.

But once the homosexual subtext and supposed subliminal suggestions are set aside, Priest's significance to heavy metal is not diminished in the least. Though the current Priest lineup describes the story as highly fictionalized, Mark Walberg's new film, Rock Star, is loosely based on the metal Cinderella story of Halford's replacement, Tim "Ripper" Owens, once a lowly singer for a Priest tribute band. But it was with Halford that Priest made its indelible mark as leaders of the "new wave of British heavy metal," influencing second-wavers Iron Maiden, King Diamond and Spinal Tap, among others.

Evolving from prog-rock-ish origins to a more aggressive two-pronged guitar attack, Judas Priest hit its stride in the late '70s, donning leather, and stripping down and streamlining its sound (imagine Led Zeppelin's "Immigrant Song" double-time with twice the banshee wail). Priest's first four '80s albums — revamped here with improved fidelity and two bonus tracks apiece — are Priest at its most accessible, taking some cues from arena-ready acts like AC/DC, whose riffs hold down crowds like steamrollers.

Each album includes a live recording taken from the tour in support of that particular release, and a studio track written and recorded during the appropriate period. And while the bonus tracks aren't indispensable, the albums as a whole are. Though thrash/speed metal would eventually render Judas Priest less relevant, its legacy remains.

-- TONY WARE

Judas Priest performs Mon., Oct. 1, at the DeKalb Atlanta Center.

"Used to play in a rock and roll band, but they broke up/We were young and we were wild, it ate us up." That line, from "Buffalo Springfield Again," off Neil Young's 2000 release Silver and Gold, succinctly sums up L.A.'s legendary Buffalo Springfield. The song, after all, was recorded while Young was sifting through tapes for the new four-CD, warts-and-all retrospective, Buffalo Springfield (Rhino).

Together a scant two years (April 1966-May 1968), the group — led by the brilliant guitar/songwriter hat-trick of Richie Furay, Steven Stills and Neil Young — managed to squeeze out only two albums: their self-titled debut and 1967's Again (1968's posthumous Last Time Around was cobbled together from solo leftovers and never endorsed by the members). Both official releases are compiled here in their original running order as disc four.

The rest of the Rhino set is a chronologically arranged hodgepodge of ragged demos, unreleased songs, alternate takes and remixed/remastered tracks selected predominantly by Young and Stills as they attempted to fill in the blanks to one of the most revered combos in '60s rock.

Influenced by the Byrds' folk rock, the Beatles' concise songcraft and studio experimentation, the Jefferson Airplane's jammy psychedelia, the intricate vocal harmonies of the Mamas and the Papas, Dylan's thoughtful wordplay and a dash of C&W, Buffalo Springfield were the very definition of West Coast singer/songwriter/rockers. Providing a blueprint for various members' later excursions in CSNY, Poco and Crazy Horse, their output was inconsistently remarkable — a brilliance (arguably) most successfully displayed on their lone hit single, "For What it's Worth."

And it's all here. Lavishly packaged with a bulging 82-page scrapbook of clippings, memorabilia and complete track documentation, this is the whole enchilada for a band whose limited catalog was disproportionately influential. While a double disc may have sufficed — and the absence of any concert material from a group known for its incendiary live shows is frustrating — this set is the final word on what made Buffalo Springfield click.

-- HAL HOROWITZ

One of the better new wave bands of the '80s, Echo & the Bunnymen were previously anthologized in 1985 on the wimpy single-CD compilation Songs to Learn and Sing. But does that injustice really justify this deluxe four-disc boxed treatment? Listeners could've fared equally well with a compact double set of highlights, and maybe some rarities tossed in for collectors. But that's not Rhino's style. They load it on with Crystal Days 1979-1999: five hours; 72 songs (17 previously unreleased, 21 never before available on CD); obscure covers of tunes by the Doors, the Stones, Television, the Velvets and the Beatles; 50 minutes of live music; and enough B-sides and obscurities to keep even the most avid Bunnymen fan sated for years. Then there's the full-color 82-page booklet, featuring essays, interviews with big-Bunny Ian McCulloch and guitarist/songwriter Will Sergeant, and detailed — often brutally honest — analysis of each and every album and song. As four fellow Liverpudlians once said, "It's All Too Much."

Moderately influential but hardly indispensable, Echo & the Bunnymen were always more popular in Britain than the States. So it's next to impossible to imagine that many aging Gen X'ers will be willing to shell out almost 60 bucks to trawl through this unwieldy collection of modest hits, quirky leftovers, deep album tracks and assorted ephemera. Still, the Bunnymen's more dramatic moments, heightened by McCulloch's morosely defiant vocals, will make it worth the effort for some. Acknowledged classics "Do It Clean," "The Back of Love" and "The Killing Moon" crackle with the passion and tension of a group teetering on the edge of genius, yet narrowly dodging the pretentious posturing that comes with the territory.

-- HAL HOROWITZ??