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Classic Album Review | Judas Priest - ‘Sad Wings Of Destiny’ (1976)
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In a new Classic Album Review, Daria and Laz analyse and review one of the key albums in the development and progression of Heavy Metal in the 1970s. Judas Priest’s ‘Sad Wings Of Destiny’ consolidated many of Metal’s traits from the early 70s into a new sound that would lead the 2nd Wave Of British Heavy Metal and hugely influence the New Wave Of British Heavy Metal in the early 80s.
You can also watch us on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC7mfJVCp_TzbPNZNMMemJuw
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Transcript
Introduction & Album Announcement
00:00:09
Speaker
Hello and welcome back to My Little Metal. My name is Dario. And I'm Laz. And together we're a husband and wife team, both pro musicians talking all things heavy metal. And today we're bringing you a very exciting classic album review of Sad Wings of Destiny by Judas Priest.
Historical Context of 'Sad Wings of Destiny'
00:00:24
Speaker
That's right. Yeah, this is Judas Priest's second album that they released in 1976 following the hard rock bluesy rocker roller, which came out a few years before. When listening to this album and when figuring out what we were going to say about it,
00:00:39
Speaker
We came up with a statement that we thought was quite important about where this album sits in metal history.
Defining the Heavy Metal Sound
00:00:45
Speaker
We believe that this album is the catalyst between early metal in the 70s and metal when it became more established in the 80s. Now, what we mean by that is that we think Judas Priest have consolidated and taken loads of characteristics that they heard in the early 70s, but packaged them all together to say this is heavy metal. So going a little deeper for now,
Influences from the First Wave of British Metal
00:01:08
Speaker
You've got the first wave of British heavy metal from about 1970 to 1975. You've got Black Sabbath, Deep Purple, Uriah Heap, Budgie, Sweet, another band that were kind of doing their thing in the early 70s. These bands weren't playing out and out heavy metal, but they were playing much heavier, much harder rock. Sabbath came with the dissonance, the darkness, the doominess, the satanic lyrics. Deep Purple were there playing faster songs, double kick drums, guitar solos and extended songs.
00:01:35
Speaker
Now, Priest took some of these characteristics as well as others, and this is when the second wave of British heavy metal started beginning from the mid-1970s to the late 1970s. This is where you have bands like Judas Priest, Saxon, Rainbow, or there was another one, and Thin Lizzy.
00:01:53
Speaker
all sort of taking on and pioneering these characteristics and putting them in a new package. Then from 1980 to about 1983 you've got the new wave of British heavy metal which was heavily influenced by the second and first waves.
Personal Connection & Musical Evolution
00:02:06
Speaker
Yeah and to me personally this is a very very exciting album because I know I'm like Sabbath of early 70s and I know, well bluntly speaking, my Iron Maiden of the early 80s
00:02:20
Speaker
But how did we get to I Am Maiden? I'm not sure of. And this album is what pieced it all together for me. Do you remember how excited I was? I was just blown away. I was like, oh my goodness, this is the moment that just clicked. So let's get into those influences deeper.
Queen's Influence on Vocals and Guitar
00:02:41
Speaker
So we've actually identified four bands that we believe are musically influencing Judas Priest in this album. Now those bands are Queen, Deep Purple, Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath and we're going to go through now band by band and talk about where we hear these influences in the Sad Wings of Destiny album. So we'll start off with Queen. Now in general what I'm hearing
00:03:03
Speaker
in Judas Priest's album from Queen is mainly focused on vocals, vocal harmonies, some parts that he sings on his own, the production, but there's even some guitar elements here, like tones harking back to Brian May's guitar tone, and most importantly, I think, piano, because we hear quite a lot of that. Now, in victims of changes, the first song, I think the first guitar lick is very Queeny. It's almost got that bluesiness about it. It's very rock and roll, and you can imagine it coming from Brian May.
00:03:32
Speaker
The intro of The Ripper, again, I thought was very Queenie. Dreamer Deceiver. Now there is a song from Queen's Sheer Heart Attack album called Tenement Funster, which literally has, I think it's the same chord and the same guitar style picking happening in Tenement Funster as there is in Dreamer Deceiver. The song Prelude.
00:03:51
Speaker
Go to Queen's 1975 album, A Night at the Opera, and you'll hear them do their own version of the British national anthem, God Save the Queen. And to me, prelude sounds just like this, the inclusion of the piano, mainly the focus.
Deep Purple's Groove and Classical Influences
00:04:05
Speaker
And the song Epitaph. Rob, to me, sounds like Freddie Mercury when he's seen those higher notes, but you've also got the harmonies and the piano really leading the track. Again, from Queen's 1973 album, Sheer Heart Attack, go and check out Lily of the Valley.
00:04:19
Speaker
And the final part for me is the island of domination, very Queen production style and very Queeny vocal arrangements. What do you think about Queen? Well, I just straight away, I thought, wow, he sounds so theatrical from Halford. And there is this.
00:04:36
Speaker
You can hear how he's performing through his vocals, and that to me is very Freddie Mercury-like. So I completely agree with all your points, and I was amazed by how there's so much Queen influence, but without sounding exactly like Queen, without copying things. Do you know what I mean by that? I do. And I think Queen are a lighter band than Black Sabbath and Deep Purple, arguably even Led Zeppelin.
00:05:03
Speaker
And for them to have created this heavy sound with a lot of influence from Queen is quite unique isn't it?
Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath's Impact
00:05:11
Speaker
Talking about Deep Purple, for me personally I think I heard a lot of Deep Purple throughout the whole album.
00:05:20
Speaker
specifically the first song, victim of changes, you know, straight away, as soon as I heard it, I was like, oh my gosh, I know this groove. I know this continuous groove. This is so deep purple. And vocals wise as well. The Ripper is a good example for that, for that Ian Gilman inspired vocal phrasing. And again, another great example of taking an influence from somewhere else,
00:05:45
Speaker
and making it completely different in your own. Yeah again it's just like we said with Queen isn't it? They've just taken that influence from Purple and just made it heavier and applied it to their new found heavy metal style. I agree with what you said there that the whole album for me is Ian Gillan when he does those high screams like what song is it where he goes forever. Like that is just so Gillan the way he jumps from a normal singing tone to something crazily high
00:06:10
Speaker
Go and check out Child in Time by Deep Purple. If you can find it, the Made in Japan version is great, because it's live, and Gillan is on form there. Yeah, like you and victim of change, I heard the unison hits in the intro so Deep Purple-y. It's almost like, it's like a funkiness, like, I come out, I think they're very fun about the scenes from victim of change, but it goes... It's like, it's got that characteristic, because Deep Purple are playing hard rock, but they're also, you know, go listen to the album Machine Head.
00:06:39
Speaker
It's a hard rock album, but there's elements of funk in there. There's elements of blues in there. But the other thing for me that harkens back and pays homage to Deep Purple is that there is a slight classical influence in Sad Wings of Destiny, be it from the piano play.
00:06:54
Speaker
or Dreamer De Siva, there's a tiny little section where I think it's an acoustic guitar, plays a little section and it sounds so classical to me. And this is important because Richie Blackmore was very, very influenced and inspired by classical music. And whilst other bands like Zeppelin were pushing and grabbing their influence from the blues, you know, Cream, Led Zeppelin,
00:07:17
Speaker
Deep Purple were taking some blue stuff but Blackmore loved his classical and you can hear it in their solos, him and John Lord's guitar and keyboard solos respectively. Huge classical influence there and I think you have parts of it here as well.
00:07:32
Speaker
So in the same way I finished the last deep purple section off about the classical influence, albeit small, I think we have the same to say about the blues influence here, because you've got loads of sections where you're hearing it sound like Led Zeppelin. Now, two examples I've got, deceiver and genocide. There are moments in there where, if I didn't know I was listening to Judas Priest, I might have thought I'd heard Robert Plant singing. It's just, you're gonna talk about this later in the vocal section, but I can just hear a tone, the way he delivers a note,
00:08:01
Speaker
Yeah, it's the opening note for me that does it. In Deceiver. I think it's also that song Deceiver has, oh no, I think it's the Ripper. The intro guitar, it sounds just like Jimmy Page's guitar tone. It could almost be Communication Breakdown. Go and check that out from Led Zeppelin 1. But to finish off with Zeppelin for me, the song Island of Domination. Halfway through the song, you've got this really swung blue section.
00:08:28
Speaker
And it's like they're not even trying to hide it here. We just said with Queen and Deep Purple, they take those influences and turned it into something that they can say is different and unique. But with here, you know, I just completely hear a Zeppelin swan blue section in Island of Domination.
Metal Influences and Musical Innovations
00:08:46
Speaker
Let's talk about Black Sabbath influence. It is huge, really. The whole base of it is heavy. It's so heavy. It is, and it has doomy vibes about it, but victim of changes. Again, war pig's vibe.
00:09:03
Speaker
So go and check our wall picks by Black Sabbath and you will hear what we mean by that. Same with the song Epitaph. Reminds me of Black Sabbath's changes. It's a ballad of the album and it's slower and it's got the darker sort of doomy influence there.
00:09:24
Speaker
yeah it's just it's there again going through the whole album same as you know Deep Purple just a bit of bits and pieces throughout the whole album yeah with Sabbath yeah and I agree with everything you've said Sabbath brought the dissonance and the darkness and the minor chords to the hard rock that's what made it metal and in the ripper you can hear obvious dissonance and darkness in those guitar riffs and the note choices you mentioned about victim of changes and that's that that's
00:09:51
Speaker
absolutely spot-on about War Pigs because the thing with Victor changes is you go look at the length of the song and how many times the sections change and the tempo changes and the feel changes and it goes heavier and it goes softer. That's the precedent that War Pigs set of how you can make an opening track of a heavy metal album heavy, to put it simply, but still exploring stylistically other avenues. You said Epitaph, I completely agree,
00:10:18
Speaker
For me, when he sings those low notes in Epitaph, he sounds a bit like Ozzy. His vocals are way more on point. He's actually hitting notes, he has a different tone, but I still hear that Ozzy in the song changes, as you mentioned. See, maybe. I don't hear it as much as you do. Yeah. But I see where you're coming from. It's just, what are you talking about, Ozzy? Like, what Ozzy stuff do you hear there? So in the same song, Epitaph,
00:10:46
Speaker
Yeah. His high notes remind me of Freddie Mercury and the low notes remind me of Aussie. Okay. And what I mean by that is if you go, we said it already, go and listen to changes and you can hear him kind of talk, you know, you know, the world turns into me. And I think what Harvard does this here, it's kind of conversational. Every note he sings in the rest of the album, when it's a high note has
00:11:08
Speaker
power has theatrics to it, it has a purpose, whereas epitaph it feels like a conversation. Yeah, it's like a story. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Yeah. So from everything you've heard there in that last section, I hope you can see what we see or hear what we can hear from the album, where we've got all these stylistic influences, just tiny little bits taken from every band.
00:11:32
Speaker
but put together and added with new stuff as well. You know, go deep and listen to this album. You've got the dark, doomy heavy riffs, dissonance and minor notes and chords, hints of blues in some licks, even some classical, which we mentioned, even some swung sections. But then you've got some new stuff coming in. You've got the dual lead guitars, which were pioneered in the mid 70s and really being innovated and pushed by bands like Priest, Thin Lizzy, Wishbone, Ash, Rainbow.
00:11:57
Speaker
guitar solos as well. Now the solos in this album are fantastic. And again, don't forget, we've got Richie Blackmore and Deep Purple doing their solo thing, very classically influenced in Machine Head. You've got Jimmy Page doing his solos, very blues influenced in Zeppelin's early albums. But then you put it together, you add some speed, you add loads of effects, some whammy bars, some phasers, some wah pedals, lots of shredding and everything. And this is what I'm hearing in these Judas Priest solos.
00:12:24
Speaker
So this is what we mean and we hope you understand and agree with us that this is the consolidation of those characteristics with some new stuff added in, in a brand new package which we'd call the second wave of heavy metal.
Rob Halford's Vocal Mastery
00:12:39
Speaker
Let's talk about Rob Halford the singer, okay? I think that this album is actually an amazing example of how versatile he is as a singer.
00:12:53
Speaker
He can manipulate his vocal tone to suit the song's needs. So what I mean by that is, for example, songs like Epitaph, which is a ballad, yeah? What does a ballad usually require? A softer kind of tone, a breathy tone, a storytelling kind of tone.
00:13:12
Speaker
And he does that. We hear these beautiful low notes there, and he just does it perfectly. Now, throughout the album, you also hear some actually mind-blowing high notes. And it literally, it catches you, doesn't it? It blows your mind. And you're like, whoa, what was that? Because 10 seconds before he's singing a low register and starting out nowhere, how'd you do it? It's just an amazing vocal technique, honestly. He's absolutely fantastic.
00:13:42
Speaker
I think the vocal section that just hit me the most, yeah, was Dreamer Deceiver around three minutes time. Check it out. There's just some crazy vocals there. And I was thinking to myself, he was 25 at that point. 25. And we've watched videos. He's still going now. He's still going. It's just fantastic, isn't it? I think
00:14:08
Speaker
I assume he practices a lot. I assume that. I mean, how could you not? Or maybe he's just naturally so talented, you know, that he doesn't even need practice. But at this point aside, there's also operatic vocals. He's got lots of vibrato going on. So vibrato is when your voice just kind of does...
00:14:27
Speaker
that wavy and that's the one that's the difference i hear between him and Ian Gillan yeah is it would that be right to say i think so yeah and Ian Gillan's got this sort of really not screaming but shouting yes i know what you mean tone and projection uh so but he does that also you know he does all of these things and um i have to say that this operatic thing about his voice
00:14:53
Speaker
It makes it sound really sophisticated in a metal album. I really like it. I do. I really love it. It sounds just so, like it belongs there. Yes. Yeah. I completely agree with everything you said. Yeah. That's, it's just a stunning vocal performance and we haven't even been, you know, Judas Priest have more famous albums than this that's going to come up, you know, we'll get to them eventually and we need to listen to them. So I can't wait to hear what his vocals have in store for us.
Influence on Iron Maiden
00:15:24
Speaker
So right at the start of the video, when we gave you our initial thought on the album, we said that it took the influences from the early first wave of British heavy metal, but it did its own influencing in the new wave of British heavy metal. And one band that we've both picked out from listening would be Iron Maiden.
00:15:41
Speaker
If you listen to Victim of Changes, there's that soft section in it which has completely reminded me of Remember Tomorrow from the first Iron Maiden album. Go and check that out to hear it. The siva, the interim riff rhythm, is almost like a... galloping and you mentioned galloping, didn't you? Yeah, and this was the point for me in the siva.
00:16:02
Speaker
I turned to you and said it clicked. I get it now. I get it. It's all come together. I can totally see I'm maiden taking influence from this for their first song. Well, you've also got songs Dreamer Deceiver, The Ending of That, Sounds So I'm Maiden to Me and the song Genocide. Not only musically, the gallopy vocal rhythms
00:16:27
Speaker
And Bruce Dickinson loves that. The thing about Ryan and the Ancient Mariner. I think we're going to buy him some, but again, you know, really jumpy. I think, you know, we've chosen this fan because we both know Iron Maiden really, really well. I mean, look at the T-shirt. I've got three others upstairs.
00:16:46
Speaker
But I'm sure, without a doubt, that other new wave of British heavy metal bands would also take an influence from this. You know, I like a band called Angel Witch, and I hear some of Priest's stuff in Angel Witch's first album. So it's undoubtedly the case that this album has done so much. And again, between this album and Iron Maiden Beginning, Priest did another album or two. I don't exactly have the information.
00:17:09
Speaker
So they've only gone to further increase this idea that they're important to metal but as we said at the start we chose and went with this album because it is their first out and out heavy metal album or at least heavy metal as we know it to be looking back at it in 1976.
Impact on Glam Metal
00:17:28
Speaker
So continuing on with how this album could have influenced other bands and styles and everything, we think that we hear quite a bit of glam metal within this album, or glam metal as it would be in the early 80s. Now glam metal is very visual.
00:17:42
Speaker
It's about crazy hair, makeup, brightly colored spandex outfits. And if you look at the way Judas pre-stressed in their early days, lots of leather, lots of crazy hairstyle. I don't think they did makeup too much, but the tight leather gear, the biker stuff, you know, Saxon were an important band as well. You've got to remember at this time, heavy metal, whether it had become a thing or not, I'm not entirely sure, but bands were starting to attribute looks with heavy metal. You think about a band like Black Sabbath, there's nothing visually
00:18:12
Speaker
noticeable about them, whereas Saxon and Judas Priest really started going with the biker stuff and attributing certain looks and clothings with it. Now on the music side of it, if you listen to Tyrant, listen to the pleasant and the agreeable sounding riff and guitar motifs, they really remind me of Van Halen.
00:18:33
Speaker
Just every now and then you've got those little guitar licks that he's doing in between sections. It's nice to listen to and it's appealing and I think that's a big part of that glam metal and what I mean by nice and appealing is it's consonant sounding. You listen to the first Black Sabbath song, Black Sabbath, it's not nice to listen to, it's dissonant, it's horrible but with this the riffs
00:18:54
Speaker
sound nice they're agreeable they're pleasant and I think glam metal that's a big factor in it and in the same point the main riff of genocide I think does the same thing makes accessible a bit classic rocky yeah brings us a nice easy to listen to music which is what glam's about well I also heard glam metal sort of guitar licks in islander domination that's the last track of the album
00:19:17
Speaker
And actually, this track is a perfect end to this album, because it has it all in my opinion. You've got Galloping, you've got Glenn Vitalik's, you've got bluesy sort of call and response. That's the same song with the blues swing, isn't it? Yeah, and it just has it all, it just has it all, and it's a great place to end the album, and sort of, you know, our points as well. All these influences just come together in this song. Question for you. Is Island of Domination a heavy metal song to you?
00:19:47
Speaker
Or does it have too much blues in it? Does it have too much hard rock for it to be? I don't think it's heavy metal for me. No, you'd call it what, hard rock? Hard rock with bluesy hard rock. Yeah, there you have it.
Conclusion & Album's Legacy
00:20:00
Speaker
So that's our take on the Judas Preen, Judas Preen. Judas Priest's Sad Wings of Destiny album from 1976. What in general were your thoughts on the album? Did you like it?
00:20:10
Speaker
Oh my god, I was going on about it for like two days. I love it so much. Yeah, I love it so much. And I think, I also listened to rock-a-roller, by the way, which is the previous album, we mentioned it today already. And I suggest you guys listen to it as well, because it's a completely different album. And you can just see how much they've changed in just two years, may I say? Because rock-a-roller was 74, this is 76. And I can just,
00:20:41
Speaker
really appreciate all these influences here and it's so exciting to be hearing all these influences you know all these bands that we said and yeah I absolutely love the album I think it's brilliant and it's a perfect bridge for me in between first wave of bridge home middle into the new wave it's just fantastic
Closing Remarks & Listener Engagement
00:21:06
Speaker
Thank you so much for being here with us today. I hope you enjoyed this episode and I hope you enjoyed Sad Wings of Destiny. Please don't forget to leave your thoughts below the video. Yeah, and for those who don't have time to sit and watch the videos, we've got a dedicated podcast available for you where we take the audio from the video and distribute it via our podcasting platforms. You can find it on Spotify, Amazon, and Apple and all your other podcasting platforms. Thanks for joining us. We hope you've enjoyed the review. Have a metal day. Have a lovely day. We'll see you very soon.