British Steel＜完全生産限定盤/Black and White Splatter Vinyl＞

英国が世界に誇るヘヴィ・メタル・レジェンド=ジューダス・プリースト 名盤『ブリティッシュ・スティール』(カラー・ヴァイナル)

1980年4月にリリースされた、イギリスのヘヴィ・メタル・バンド=ジューダス・プリーストによる6枚目のスタジオ・アルバム『ブリティッシュ・スティール』アナログ盤。ジャケット・デザインとアルバム・タイトルが象徴するように徹底的にヘヴィ・メタルを追求したアルバム。これまでジューダスの特徴の1つとなっていたバラードや彼らの曲を劇的・華麗に彩ったギター・ソロは、ここではほぼ姿を消し、ここにあるのはバンド全体で簡潔にヘヴィ・メタルを希求する姿であり、徹頭徹尾リフで押しまくっている。本作よりドラマーがデヴィッド・ホーランドに代わっている。「ブレイキング・ザ・ロウ」「リビング・アフター・ミッドナイト」という2大代表曲を収録し、バンド史上最も幅広く受け入れられた名盤。

Predating Metallica's self-titled blockbuster by 11 years, Judas Priest's British Steel was a similarly pitched landmark boasting many of the same accomplishments. It streamlined and simplified the progressive intricacies of a band fresh off of revolutionizing the entire heavy metal genre; it brought an aggressive, underground metal subgenre crashing into the mainstream (in Priest's case, the NWOBHM; in Metallica's, thrash); and it greatly expanded the possibilities for heavy metal's commercial viability as a whole. Of course, British Steel was nowhere near the sales juggernaut that Metallica was, but in catapulting Judas Priest to the status of stadium headliners, it was the first salvo fired in heavy metal's ultimate takeover of the hard rock landscape during the 1980s. Packed with strong melodic hooks, British Steel is a deliberate commercial move, forsaking the complexity of the band's early work in favor of a robust, AC/DC-flavored groove. It's a convincing transformation, as Priest prove equally adept at opening up their arrangements to let the rhythms breathe (something Iron Maiden, for all their virtues, never did master). The album is built around the classic singles "Breaking the Law" and "Living After Midnight," both big hits in the U.K., which openly posit Priest as a party band for the first time. But British Steel is hardly a complete break from the band's past. There are still uptempo slices of metallic mayhem bookending the album in "Rapid Fire" and "Steeler," plus effective moodier pieces in "Metal Gods" (ostensibly about gods literally made of metal, though you know full well the band wanted a nickname) and the crawling menace of "The Rage," which features arguably the best Rob Halford vocal on the album. Not everything on British Steel quite holds up today -- the British hit "United" is a simplistic (not just simplified) football-chant anthem in the unfortunate tradition of "Take on the World," while "You Don't Have to Be OId to Be Wise" wallows in the sort of "eff your parents, man!" sentiments that are currently used to market kids' breakfast cereals. These bits of blatant pandering can leave more than a whiff of unease about the band's commercial calculations, and foreshadow the temporary creative slip on the follow-up, Point of Entry. Still, on the whole, British Steel is too important an album to have its historical stature diluted by minor inconsistencies. Rather, it sealed Judas Priest's status as genre icons, and kick-started heavy metal's glory days of the 1980s. It went Top Five in the U.K. and became their first Top 40 album in the U.S., going platinum in the process and paving the way for countless imitators and innovators alike. ~ Steve Huey