Non-Prog Album Reviews

Personal likes: "One For The Road", "Rocka Rolla", "Cheater”, "Never Satisfied", "Run Of The Mill"

Personal dislikes: none, but "Winter" comes close

Well... this is certainly a low key debut to one of the most flamboyant bands in rock history. If you were to play this back to back with, say, Painkiller, you would think this was two entirely different bands.

Even if I were to ignore their later glories and just focus on the album's own merits, I still think it’s kind of average. There’s nothing terrible here, but nothing that would scream "Buy this album now!", at least not enough good material to warrant it. Judas Priest was still finding its legs, going for a more hard rock and blues sound with a hint of progressive rock a la Black Sabbath, Led Zeppelin, Uriah Heep and early 70s Deep Purple. Speaking of which, I almost liken Rocka Rolla to Black Sabbath’s self titled debut in terms of its bluesy nature and raw state, however Rocka Rolla doesn’t sound as focused. It doesn’t help that Roger Bain, who also produced Sabbath’s debut, was supposedly nixing some songs that Priest was considering for the album, including "The Ripper", "Tyrant", "Epitaph" and what would eventually become the first half of "Victim Of Changes", and might have also been the one to drastically shorten the closing "Cavier and Meths".

Problems aside, the album shows a band with some potential. The title track is a nice mid tempo gallop and the chorus and classical portion make it the catchiest piece on the album, not to mention the best. And Halford whips out a harmonica on there, which is a nice surprise. “Never Satisfied” is a cool hard rocking tune in the vein of Led Zeppelin and "One For The Road" and "Cheater" are bluesy stompers, with the latter having even more harmonica. Why "Cheater" had to be connected to the "Winter" suite in my copy of the album is beyond me. I guess the guy in the suite and "Cheater" is a snowplow driver who lost it after seeing his woman in bed with another man and proceeds to blow them both away a la "Hey Joe".

While Priest was able to get a grip with hard rock from the beginning, their early ventures in progressive rock were hit and miss. The "Winter" suite could have been neat, but it sounds like the band wanted to make something with an incomplete hard rock tune and an incomplete ballad they had on them and had no idea how to integrate the two into a coherent whole. In the end, Downing just connects the two with two minutes worth of guitar feedback and calls it a day and as much as I like feedback, the final result just sounds clumsy. The eight-plus minute ballad "Run Of The Mill" is a little better, at least it sounds like there was some time and thought put into the piece. The vocal melody is decent and the lyrics are surprisingly introspective. The music has a nice moody vibe, which is complemented by the guitar work and synths. "Dying To Meet You", is another suite of a ballad and a hard rock tune (title “Hero, Hero”) tacked together. Kind of like “Winter” but the effect is not as forced. It doesn’t do much for me, but at least it’s decent. Rounding out the prog tunes is "Cavier and Meths", which is pretty, but kind of fillerish, most likely due to being reduced from its much longer form.

As I said, Rocka Rolla is sort of unfocused, but I get the sense that this could have been a much better record if Priest had been given more room to breathe. Nonetheless, the album still manages to have some decent numbers and would serve as a blueprint for the next two records, for which the band would refine the ideas presented here. I want to give this a 4/5 and might in the future, but can’t bring myself to do it mainly because, well, blame Sad Wings Of Destiny and Sin After Sin for that.